Counselman v. Hitchcock

Citations

• 142 U.S. 547
• 12 S. Ct. 195
• 35 L. Ed. 1110
• 1892 U.S. LEXIS 1990
• 3 A.F.T.R. (P-H) 2529

Syllabus

<p>Under the 5th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which declares that “ no person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” where a person is under examination before a grand jury, in an investigation into certain alleged violations of the' interstate commerce act of February 4, 1887, 24 Stat. 379, and the amendatory act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 855, he is not obliged to answer questions where he states that his answers might tend to criminate hirii, although § 860 of the Revised Statutes provides that no evidence given by him shall be in any manner used against him, in any court of the United States, in any criminal.proceeding.</p> <p>The case before the grand jury was a criminal case.</p> <p>The meaning of the constitutional provision is not merely that a person shall not be compelled to be .a witness against himself'in a criminal prosecution against himself; but its object is to insure that a person shall not be compelled, when acting as a witness in any investigation, to give testimony which may tend to show that he himself has committed a crime.</p> <p>The ruling in People v. Kelly, 24 N. Y. 74, that the words “ criminal case” mean only a criminal prosecution against the witness himself, disapproved.</p> <p>The protection afforded by § 860 is not co-extensive with the constitutional provision.</p> <p>Adjudged cases on this subject, in courts of the United States, and of the States, reviewed.</p> <p>As the manifest purpose of the constitutional provisions, both of the States and of the United States, is to prohibit the compelling of testimony of a self-criminating kind from a party or a witness, the liberal construction which must be placed on constitutional provisions for the protection of personal rights, would seem to require that the constitutional guaranties, however differently worded, should have as far as possible the same interpretation.</p> <p>It is a reasonable construction of the constitution