William O. Douglas

“ There is nothing in the legislative history that would suggest that Congress was willing to pay any such price for the testimony. If the disabilities which attach under existing law are forfeitures, the Court should strike down the Act. If Congress chooses to enact a new Immunity Act broad enough to protect against all forfeitures, it is free to do so. The Court seems to commit Congress to a policy that there is no indication Congress favors. ”

“ The Beccarian attitude toward infamy was a part of the background of the Fifth Amendment. The concept of infamy was explicitly written into it. We need not guess as to that. For the first Clause of the Fifth Amendment contains the concept in haec verba: 'No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, [5] unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury * * *.' (Italics added.) ”

“ When a man loses a job because he is a Communist, there is as much a penalty suffered as when an importer loses property because he is a tax evader. When a man loses his right to a passport because he is a Communist, there is as much a penalty suffered as when property is lost for violation of the revenue laws. ”

“ The oppression of crowns and principalities is unquestionably over, but the more frightful oppression of selfish, ruthless, and merciless majorities may yet constitute one of the chapters of future history. ”

“ It shows that the privilege of silence is exchanged for a partial, undefined, vague immunity. It means that Congress has granted far less than it has taken away.
(2) The guarantee against self-incrimination contained in the Fifth Amendment is not only a protection against conviction and prosecution but a safeguard of conscience and human dignity and freedom of expression as well. My view is that the Framers put it beyond the power of Congress to compel anyone to confess his crimes. The evil to be guarded against was partly self-accusation under legal compulsion. ”

“ The contrary holding was deemed hostile to the spirit of our institutions:
'* * * any compulsory discovery by extorting the party's oath, or compelling the production of his private books and papers, to convict him of crime, or to forfeit his property, is contrary to the principles of a free government. It is abhorrent to the instincts of an Englishman; it is abhorrent to the instincts of an American. ”

“ One 'mischief' is not only the risk of conviction but the risk of prosecution. Mr. Justice Shiras, one of the four dissenters in Brown v. Walker, alluded to this difficulty when he declared that the immunity statute involved in that case was unconstitutional:
'* * * all that can be said is, that the witness is not protected, by the provision in question from being prosecuted, but that he has been furnished with a good plea to the indictment, which will secure his acquittal. ”

“ When we see the shield held before the briber, the liquor seller, the usury taker, the duelist, and the other violators of accepted law, we are moved to break or cast is aside, unmindful of the splendid purpose that first threw it forward. ”

“ There is great infamy involved in the present case apart from the loss of rights of citizenship under federal law which I have already mentioned. The disclosure that a person is a Communist practically excommunicates him from society. ”

“ The majority will not say that it does. I think, indeed, that it must be read as granting only partial, not complete, immunity for the matter disclosed under compulsion. Yet, as the Court held in Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 586, 12 S.Ct. 195, 206, 35 L.Ed. 1110, an immunity statute to be valid must 'supply a complete protection from all the perils against which the constitutional prohibition was designed to guard * * *.'
Boyd v. United States, supra, involved a proceeding to establish a forfeiture of goods alleged to have been fraudulently imported without payment of duties. ”

“ Article 45 of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 provided in part, 'No man shall be forced by Torture to confesse any Crime against himself nor any other * * *.' Connecticut adopted a similar provision. ”

“ If an actor, he is on a black list. (See Horowitz, Loyalty Tests for Employment in the Motion Picture Industry, 6 Stan.L.Rev. 438.) And he will be able to find no employment in our society except at the lowest level, if at all. ”