Ex parte Cohen

California Supreme Court Nov 24, 1894 No. No. 21180Published

Before: Garoutte, Harrison, McFarland

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Holding. The court held that a witness may be compelled to testify regarding offenses under the Purity of Election Law because the statute provides absolute immunity from prosecution for any offense disclosed by such testimony, thereby satisfying constitutional protections against self-incrimination. Consequently, the witness's refusal to answer was properly adjudged as contempt.

Issues

Whether a witness can be compelled to testify in a judicial proceeding if the testimony might tend to incriminate them.
Whether Section 32 of the Purity of Election Law provides sufficient immunity to override the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.

Disposition. remanded

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The exemption is as broad as the compulsion, and the protection is equal to that given by the constitution.”

“We hold, therefore, that the petitioner should have answered the questions propounded to him, and that he was rightly adjudged guilty of contempt in refusing to answer them.”

Synopsis

HeariNG in the Supreme Court upon a writ of habeas corpus.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Harrison, J. While Louis Steinberger was under examination before the Hon. W. T. Wallace, one of the judges of the superior court of San Francisco, sitting as a committing magistrate, in which said Steinberger was charged with a felony in “ having willfully caused, procured, and allowed one Louis Cohen to be registered [526]upon the precinct register of the first precinct of the forty-third assembly district of the state of California in the city and county of San Francisco, state of California, knowing said Louis Cohen not to be entitled to such registration,” the petitioner was called as a witness on the part of the people, and, having been sworn as such witness, was asked the following questions, viz:

“ Q. Mr. Cohen, where do you reside?

“ Q. On the third day of October, 1894, where did you reside?

“ Q. Do you know the defendant, Louis Steinberger?

“ Q. Did you have any conversation with Mr. Stein-berger on the third day of last October respecting your going and procuring yourself to be placed upon the great register of this county?

“ Q. Or the precinct register of this city and county?

“ Q. Did you register or procure your name to be placed upon the precinct register of the first precinct of the forty-third assembly district on the 3d of last October?

“Q. Were you present at the Baldwin Hotel with Mr. Steinberger on the third day of October?

“Q. At Mr. Steinberger’s direction did the clerk of the Baldwin Hotel furnish you with a key to a certain room in the hotel? ”

The witness refused to answer each of these questions as they were propounded to him, on the ground that his answer might incriminate him, whereupon the judge stated to him: “ It is a legal impossibility in this case to expose yourself by your testimony here. I instruct you that you are bound to answer. You must answer.” But, notwithstanding such direction, the witness still refused to answer, and was thereupon adjudged guilty of contempt, and ordered to be imprisoned in the common jail of the city and county of San Francisco, until he answer said questions and each of them before said judge.

The right of the legislature to determine who shall be competent witnesses to establish any fact under judicial

Ex parte Cohen

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