William O. Douglas

“ Any other rule gives the prosecutor and the judge the awful power to create crimes as they choose. Because of the prosecutor's efforts to multiply the offense by continuing the line of questions, Mrs. Yates' second refusal to answer, following consistently the position she had made clear to the court upon the first day of her cross-examination, was not a contempt. Her second refusal to answer was merely a failure to purge [3] herself of the first contempt, not a new one. ”

“ Mrs. Yates, not wanting to be an informer, refused on cross-examination to answer four questions concerning the Communist Party affiliations of any codefendant who had rested his case or any other person who might be subject to persecution by such a disclosure. ”