To: Badeye
Oh, for cripes sake. If you ever get called as a witness in a civil proceeding, and your testimony might incriminate you in some future criminal proceeding, please, please, please see a lawyer before you testify. By so testifying, you could be considered to have waived your priviledge.
I'm sure your lawyer will quote to you some language from the Supreme Court decision in Lefkowitz v. Turley, cited in my previous post:
The Fifth Amendment provides that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." The Amendment not only protects the individual against being involuntarily called as a witness against himself in a criminal prosecution but also privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings. McCarthy v. Arndstein, 266 U.S. 34, 40 (1924), squarely held that
"[t]he privilege is not ordinarily dependent upon the nature of the proceeding in which the testimony is sought or is to be used. It applies alike to civil and criminal proceedings, wherever the answer might tend to subject to criminal responsibility him who gives it. The privilege protects a mere witness as fully as it does one who is also a party defendant."
And, for your sake, don't go around telling people of your opinion on this matter, it doesn't make you sound so good.
30 posted on
07/22/2004 7:09:08 AM PDT by
BikerNYC
To: BikerNYC
You keep mixing criminal law with civil law.
Sorry, I don't agree, and your own posts demonstrate why. And btw, I never do anything without my corporate attorney's signing off on it. I've also been in civil trials, both as plantiff and defendent.
Anyway, thanks for the effort. Now, before you decend into another round of disparaging remarks...chill.
We disagree, its allowed.
31 posted on
07/22/2004 7:12:04 AM PDT by
Badeye
("The day you stop learning, is the day you begin dying")
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson