Felix Frankfurter

“ But the Bill of Rights was added to the original Constitution in the conviction that too high a price may be paid even for the unhampered enforcement of the criminal law and that, in its attainment, other social objects of a free society should not be sacrificed. We are immediately concerned with the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, intertwined as they are, and expressing as they do supplementing phases of the same constitutional purpose-to maintain inviolate large areas of personal privacy. ”

“ For the 'unreasonable searches and seizures' condemned in the fourth amendment are almost always made for the purpose of compelling a man to give evidence against himself, which in criminal cases is condemned in the fifth amendment; and compelling a man 'in a criminal case to be a witness against himself,' which is condemned in the fifth amendment, throws light on the question as to what is an 'unreasonable search and seizure' within the meaning of the fourth amendment. ”

“ Within its sweeping prohibition are found no exceptions based upon the persons who compel, their purpose in compelling, or their method of compelling, whether by threats of imprisonment, physical torture, or other means. Testimony is no less compelled because a state rather than a federal officer compels it, or because the state officer appears to be primarily interested at the moment in enforcing a state rather than a federal law. ”

“ Feldman's objection to the use of his compelled testimony is not based on a claim that New York must grant him, or has granted him, immunity from prosecution for the federal crime it has forced him to confess. He does not question the power of the United States to prosecute him for that crime on proper evidence. ”

“ Few persons would seriously object to testifying unless their testimony would subject them to future punishment. The real evil aimed at by the Fifth Amendment's flat prohibition against the compulsion of self-incriminatory testimony was that thought to inhere in using a man's compelled testimony to punish him. ”

“ Constitutional interpretation should involve more than dialectics. The great principles of liberty written in the Bill of Rights cannot safely be treated as imprisoned in walls of formal logic built upon vague abstractions found in the United States Reports. 'The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself and not what we have said about it.' Graves v. New York ex rel. ”

“ Conversely, a State cannot by operating within its constitutional powers restrict the operations of the National Government within its sphere. The distinctive operations of the two governments within their respective spheres is basic to our federal constitutional system, howsoever complicated and difficult the practical accommodations to it may be. ”

“ Or at least, even if the use of testimony extracted by compulsory discovery be held consistent with due process, adherence to the belief expressed by the Boyd case should require the Court to hold that, absent a conflicting Act of Congress, 'a decent regard for the duty of courts as agencies of justice and custodians of liberty forbids that men should be convicted upon evidence' so obtained. ”

“ In accordance with New York procedure, known as supplementary proceedings, designed to aid in the discovery of assets of a debtor, N.Y. Civil Practice Act, art. 45, Feldman, a judgment debtor, was called as a witness in such proceedings on several occasions between March 31, 1936, and September 29, 1939. Up to March 14, 1938, the New York immunity statute merely provided that a debtor might not be excused from testifying because of self-crimination but that his testimony could not be used in evidence in a subsequent criminal proceeding against him. ”

“ We put to one side all these subtler issues because we think they cannot dispose of the case. And so we come directly to the main question, namely whether the Fifth Amendment prohibited the admission against Feldman upon his trial in a federal court of the earlier testimony given by him in the state courts. While the point has not been formally decided, we deem the answer to be controlled by a long series of decisions expressing basic principles of our federation.
The effective enforcement of a well designed penal code is of course indispensable for social security. ”

“ United States, this Court said that 'any compulsory discovery by extorting the party's oath * * * is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent * * * to the instincts of an American. ”

“ As they well knew, history teaches that attempted exercises of the freedoms of religion, speech, press, and assembly have been the commonest occasions for oppression and persecution. Inevitably such persecutions have involved secret arrests, unlawful detentions, forced confessions, secret trials, and arbitrary punishments under oppressive laws. ”

“ They sought by these provisions to assure that no individual could be punished except according to 'due process', by which they certainly intended that no person could be punished except for a violation of definite and validly enacted laws of the land, and after a trial conducted in accordance with the specific procedural safeguards written in the Bill of Rights. ”