AI Case Brief
Generate an AI-powered case brief with:
Estimated cost: $0.001 - $0.003 per brief
Full Opinion
PILLSBURY CO. ET AL.
v.
CONBOY
Supreme Court of United States.
*249 Francis J. McConnell argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was Edward F. Ruberry.
Michael W. Coffield argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Kevin M. Flynn.[*]
Harold F. Baker, Alan Wiseman, and Ann I. Killilea filed a brief for Mead Corp. as amicus curiae.
JUSTICE POWELL delivered the opinion of the Court.
Pursuant to the federal use immunity provisions, 18 U. S. C. งง 6001-6005, a United States Attorney may request an order from a federal court compelling a witness to testify even though he has asserted his privilege against self-incrimination. Section 6002 provides, however, that "no testimony or other information compelled under the order (or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information) may be used against the witness in any criminal case . . . ." The issue presented in this case is whether a deponent's civil deposition testimony, repeating *250 verbatim or closely tracking his prior immunized testimony, is immunized "testimony" that can be compelled over the valid assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege.
I
Respondent John Conboy is a former executive of a defendant in In re Corrugated Container Antitrust Litigation, M. D. L. 310 (SD Tex.). In January 1978, United States Department of Justice attorneys interviewed Conboy following a promise of use immunity. Conboy subsequently appeared before a grand jury investigating price-fixing activities and, pursuant to 18 U. S. C. ง 6002, was granted formal use immunity for his testimony.
Following the criminal indictment of several companies, numerous civil antitrust actions were filed in various United States District Courts. Those actions were consolidated for discovery in the District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Petitioners here are purchasers of corrugated containers who elected to opt out of the class-action proceedings and pursue their own causes of action against manufacturers. The District Court ordered that portions of the immunized Government interview and grand jury testimony of certain witnesses, including that of Conboy, be made available to lawyers for the class and opt-outs.[1]
Pursuant to a subpoena issued by the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Conboy appeared in Chicago for a deposition at which he, his counsel, and petitioners' counsel had copies of his immunized testimony. The transcripts were marked as deposition exhibits so that all could follow the intended examination. The questioning fell into the following pattern: a question was read from the transcript; it then was rephrased to include the transcript answer (i. e., *251 "Is it not the fact that . . ."); finally, Conboy was asked if he had "so testif[ied]" in his immunized interview and grand jury examination.[2] Conboy refused to answer each question, asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
The District Court granted petitioners' motion to compel Conboy to answer the questions.[3] When Conboy continued to claim his privilege, the District Court held him in contempt, but stayed its order pending appeal. A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the contempt order, holding that, "[b]ecause the questions asked in this deposition were taken verbatim from or closely tracked the transcript of Conboy's grand jury testimony, we believe that his answers at the deposition would be `derived from' the prior immunized [testimony] and therefore unavailable for use in any subsequent criminal prosecution." In re Corrugated Container Antitrust Litigation, Appeal of Conboy, 655 F. 2d 748, 751 (1981).
On rehearing en banc, the Court of Appeals reversed the District Court. 661 F. 2d 1145 (1981). It first determined that Conboy's alleged fear of prosecution was more than "fanciful," id., at 1152, and that Conboy therefore was entitled to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege unless his deposition *252 testimony could not be used against him in a subsequent criminal action, see id., at 1153.[4] The court then held that under ง 6002, absent a separate and independent grant of immunity,[5] a deponent's civil deposition testimony that repeats verbatim or closely tracks his prior immunized testimony is not protected. While acknowledging that verbatim questions "of course [would be] derived" from the immunized testimony, the court reasoned that the answers to such questions "are derived from the deponent's current, independent memory of events" and thus "necessarily create a new source of evidence" that could be used in a subsequent criminal prosecution against Conboy. Id., at 1155 (emphasis in original).
We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict in the Courts of Appeals,[6] 454 U. S. 1141 (1982), and now affirm.
II
It is settled that government must have the power to compel testimony "to secure information necessary for effective law enforcement." Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n, 378 U. S. 52, 79 (1964).[7] For many years, however, a person who was compelled to testify under a grant of governmental *253 immunity could not be prosecuted for any conduct about which he had testified. See New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U. S. 450, 457 (1979). Prosecutors therefore were reluctant to grant such "transactional" immunity to potential targets of criminal investigations. See S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 53 (1969).
The "major purpose" of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. 91-452, 84 Stat. 922, of which ง 6002 was a key provision, was "to provide the criminal justice system with the necessary legal tools to . . . strengthe[n] the evidence gathering process and insur[e] that the evidence will then be available and admissible at trial." 116 Cong. Rec. 35200 (1970) (statement of Rep. St Germain). Congress sought to make the grant of immunity more useful for law enforcement officers through two specific changes. First, Congress made the grant of immunity less expansive[8] by repealing the authority for transactional immunity and providing for the less comprehensive use immunity authorized in ง 6002.[9] Second, Congress gave certain officials in *254 the Department of Justice[10] exclusive authority to grant immunities.[11]
The Court upheld the constitutionality of the use immunity statute in Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441 (1972). The power to compel testimony is limited by the Fifth Amendment, and we held that any grant of immunity must be coextensive with the privilege. We were satisfied, however, *255 that ง 6002 provided this measure of protection and thus "removed the dangers against which the privilege protects." Id., at 449. In rejecting the argument that use and derivative-use immunity would not adequately protect a witness from various incriminating uses of the compelled testimony, we emphasized that "[t]he statute provides a sweeping proscription of any use, direct or indirect, of the compelled testimony and any information derived therefrom . . . ." Id., at 460. We added that once a defendant establishes that he has testified under a grant of immunity, "the prosecution [has] the affirmative duty to prove that the evidence it proposes to use is derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled testimony." Ibid. Thus, "immunity from use and derivative use `leaves the witness and the Federal Government in substantially the same position as if the witness had claimed his privilege' in the absence of a grant of immunity." Id., at 458-459 (quoting Murphy, 378 U. S., at 79).
III
With the foregoing statutory history and relevant principles in mind, we turn now to this case. It is not disputed that the questions asked of Conboy were directly or indirectly derived from his immunized testimony. The issue as presented to us is whether the causal connection between the questions and the answers is so direct that the answers also are derived from that testimony and therefore should be excluded under the grant of immunity.
Petitioners' argument is based on the language of ง 6002 and on a common understanding of the words "derived from." The questions formulated on the basis of immunized testimony are clearly "derived from" the prior testimony. Thus, the answers that repeat verbatim or closely track a deponent's testimony are necessarily also "derived from" and "tainted by" such testimony. Petitioners therefore find no basis for the distinction made by the Court of Appeals between questions and answers responsive to those same questions. *256 An answer by its very nature is evoked by and responds to information contained in a question.
Conboy's position is also straightforward: Questions do not incriminate; answers do. Unlike the questions, answers are not directly or indirectly derived from the immunized grand jury or interview transcripts, but from the deponent's current, independent memory of events. Even when a deponent's deposition answers are identical to those he gave to the grand jury, he is under oath to tell the truth, not necessarily as he told it before the grand jury, but as he knows it now. Each new statement of the deponent creates a new "source." In sum, the initial grant of immunity does not prevent the prosecutor from prosecuting; it merely limits his sources of evidence.
Although the parties make their arguments in terms tracking those of the statute โ whether the deposition testimony is "derived from" the prior testimony โ it is clear that the crux of their dispute is whether the earlier grant of immunity itself compelled Conboy to talk.[12] Petitioners contend that the prior grant of immunity already had supplanted Conboy's Fifth Amendment privilege at the time of the civil deposition. Petitioners would limit this immunity, of course, to testimony that "closely tracks" his prior immunized testimony. It is argued that this would not threaten the Government's need for admissible evidence or the individual's interest in avoiding self-incrimination. In the absence of such a threat, admissible evidence should be available to civil antitrust plaintiffs. But we cannot accept the assumptions upon which petitioners' conclusion rests. In our view, a District Court cannot compel Conboy to answer deposition questions over a *257 valid assertion of his Fifth Amendment right, absent a duly authorized assurance of immunity at the time.[13]
We note at the outset that although there may be practical reasons for not testifying,[14] as far as the deponent's Fifth Amendment right is concerned he should be indifferent between the protection afforded by silence and that afforded by immunity. A deponent's primary interest is that the protection be certain. The Government's interest, however, may be affected seriously by whether the deponent relies at the civil deposition on his Fifth Amendment privilege or on his prior grant of immunity. With due recognition of petitioners' *258 need for admissible evidence, our inquiry then is whether this need can be met without jeopardizing the Government's interest in limiting the scope of an immunity grant or encroaching upon the deponent's certainty of protection.
A
Questions taken verbatim from a transcript of immunized testimony could evoke one of several responses from a deponent: (i) he could repeat or adopt his immunized answer;[15] (ii) he could affirm that the transcript of his immunized answers accurately reflects his prior testimony; (iii) he could recall additional information responsive to the question but not disclosed in his immune testimony; or (iv) he could disclose information that is not responsive to the question. Petitioners do not contend, nor could they, that the prior grant of use immunity affords protection for all self-incriminating information disclosed by the immunized witness on any occasion after the giving of the immunized testimony. Rather, petitioners argue that only the first three responses would be "derived from" his immune testimony and therefore would be unavailable for use against the deponent in any subsequent criminal prosecution.
Petitioners' premise is that the deposition of Conboy is designed not to discover new information,[16] but to obtain evidence *259 that simply repeats the statements in the immunized transcript.[17] Because there will be little opportunity for the grant of immunity to sweep in statements on direct examination that the Government did not intend to immunize, or for the deponent to give responses that may fall outside of the grant of immunity and later be used against him in a subsequent criminal prosecution, petitioners argue that Conboy's deposition will yield only a carbon copy of the grand jury transcript. In such a situation, it would be desirable for civil plaintiffs, particularly those bringing private suits that supplement the criminal enforcement of the federal antitrust laws, to have access to the available, probative information.
But even if the direct examination is limited to the questions and answers in the immunized transcript, there remains the right of cross-examination,[18] a right traditionally relied upon expansively to test credibility as well as to seek the truth. Petitioners recognize this problem, but maintain that the antitrust defendants "would be entitled to test the accuracy *260 and truthfulness of Conboy's repeated immunized testimony without going beyond the confines of that testimony." Reply Brief for Petitioners 14-15. Regardless of any limitations that may be imposed on its scope,[19] however, cross-examination is intended to and often will produce information not elicited on direct. We must assume that, to produce admissible evidence, the scope of cross-examination at the deposition cannot easily be limited to the immunized testimony. This assumption implicates both the Government's and the individual's interests embodied in ง 6002.
B
Use immunity was intended to immunize and exclude from a subsequent criminal trial only that information to which the Government expressly has surrendered future use. If the Government is engaged in an ongoing investigation of the particular activity at issue, immunizing new information (e. g., the answers to questions in a case like this one) may make it more difficult to show in a subsequent prosecution that similar information was obtained from wholly independent sources. If a district court were to conclude in a subsequent civil proceeding that the prior immunity order extended to civil deposition testimony closely tracking the immunized testimony, it in effect could invest the deponent with transactional immunity on matters about which he testified at the immunized proceedings. This is precisely the kind of immunity Congress intended to prohibit. The purpose of ง 6002 was to limit the scope of immunity to the level that is constitutionally required, as well as to limit the use of *261 immunity to those cases in which the Attorney General, or officials designated by him, determine that gaining the witness' testimony outweighs the loss of the opportunity for criminal prosecution of that witness.[20]
C
Petitioners' interpretation of ง 6002 also places substantial risks on the deponent.[21] Unless the grant of immunity assures a witness that his incriminating testimony will not be used against him in a subsequent criminal prosecution, the witness has not received the certain protection of his Fifth Amendment privilege that he has been forced to exchange. No court has authority to immunize a witness. That responsibility, as we have noted, is peculiarly an executive one, and only the Attorney General or a designated officer of the Department of Justice has authority to grant use immunity. See 18 U. S. C. งง 6002, 6003. Nor should a court, at the time of the civil testimony, predetermine the decision of the court in a subsequent criminal prosecution on the question whether the Government has met its burden of proving that "the evidence it proposes to use is derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled testimony." Kastigar, 406 U. S., at 460. Yet in holding Conboy in contempt for his Fifth Amendment silence, the District Court below essentially predicted that a court in any future criminal prosecution of Conboy will be obligated to protect against evidentiary use of the deposition testimony petitioners seek. We do not think such a predictive judgment is enough.
*262 Petitioners' interpretation of ง 6002 imposes risks on the deponent whether or not the deposition testimony properly can be used against him in a subsequent criminal prosecution.[22] Accordingly, the District Court's compulsion order in this case, in the absence of statutory authority or a new grant of immunity by the United States Attorney, cannot be justified by the subsequent exclusion of the compelled testimony. As JUSTICE MARSHALL notes in his concurring opinion: "Whatever justification there may be for requiring a witness to give incriminating testimony in aid of a criminal investigation after the Government has granted use immunity, there is no similar justification for compelling a witness to give incriminating testimony for the benefit of a private litigant when the Government has not chosen to grant immunity." Post, at 267.
The result of compelling testimony โ whether it is immunized or excluded โ is that the Government's interests, as well as the witness', suffer. Reliance on judicial exclusion of nonimmunized testimony would be inconsistent with the congressional policy of leaving the granting of immunity to the Executive Branch.
As the Court stated in Maness v. Meyers, 419 U. S. 449 (1975), compelling a witness to testify in "reliance upon a later objection or motion to suppress would `let the cat out' with no assurance whatever of putting it back." Id., at 463. We believe Conboy acted properly in maintaining his silence in the face of the District Court's compulsion order and by testing the validity of his privilege on appeal.
IV
This Court has emphasized the importance of the private action as a means of furthering the policy goals of certain federal *263 regulatory statutes, including the federal antitrust laws. See, e. g., Perma Life Mufflers, Inc. v. International Parts Corp., 392 U. S. 134, 139 (1968); United States v. Borden Co., 347 U. S. 514, 518-519 (1954). But private civil actions can only supplement, not supplant, the primary responsibility of government. Petitioners' proposed construction of ง 6002 sweeps further than Congress intended and could hinder governmental enforcement of its criminal laws by turning use immunity into a form of transactional immunity for subjects examined in the immunized proceeding. It also puts the deponent in some danger of criminal prosecution unless he receives an assurance of immunity or exclusion that the courts cannot properly give. Silence, on the other hand, preserves the deponent's rights and the Government's interests, as well as the judicial resources that otherwise would be required to make the many difficult judgments that petitioners' interpretation of ง 6002 would require.[23]
V
We hold that a deponent's civil deposition testimony, closely tracking his prior immunized testimony, is not, without duly authorized assurance of immunity at the time, immunized testimony within the meaning of ง 6002, and therefore *264 may not be compelled over a valid assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege.[24] The judgment of the Court of Appeals accordingly is
Affirmed.
JUSTICE MARSHALL, concurring.
I join the Court's decision that a witness who has given immunized testimony may invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege at a later proceeding in response to questions based on his immunized testimony. Permitting a civil litigant to rely on prior immunized testimony to defeat an otherwise valid claim of privilege would be inconsistent with the purposes of the use-immunity statute, regardless of whether, had the witness answered voluntarily, his answers could have been used against him in a later criminal trial. The Court's decision today does not reach the question whether such answers could later be admitted against the witness. In his dissenting opinion, JUSTICE STEVENS argues that Conboy may not assert the Fifth Amendment privilege precisely because his answers could not properly be used against him in a later criminal trial. Because I agree with JUSTICE STEVENS that such answers could not be properly used in a subsequent criminal trial, I write separately to explain why I believe respondent nevertheless retained his Fifth Amendment privilege.
If Conboy had voluntarily answered petitioners' deposition questions, his answers would have been "directly or indirectly derived from" his prior testimony before the grand jury. The questions were based solely on the transcript of respondent's grand jury testimony. There is no suggestion that the same or similar questions would have been asked had petitioners' attorneys not obtained a transcript of the grand jury testimony. Thus, if respondent had answered the questions, *265 his answers would not have been "derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled testimony." Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441, 460 (1972).
The admission of such answers at a subsequent criminal prosecution would represent a substantial departure from the fundamental premise of this Court's decision in Kastigar. In upholding the use-immunity statute against an attack based upon the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, the Court concluded that use immunity affords a witness protection "as comprehensive as the protection afforded by the privilege." Id., at 449. The Court stated that the statute "prohibits the prosecutorial authorities from using the compelled testimony in any respect," id., at 453 (emphasis in original), and that it "provides a sweeping proscription of any use, direct or indirect, of the compelled testimony and any information derived therefrom," id., at 460. If the prosecution could introduce answers elicited from a witness by questions that would not have been asked but for the witness' immunized testimony, the protection afforded by use immunity would not be "as comprehensive as the protection afforded by the privilege." Id., at 449.
I therefore agree with my Brother STEVENS that answers to the questions posed by petitioners' attorneys could not properly have been used at a subsequent criminal trial. It does not follow, however, that respondent can be compelled to answer. In this case it is conceded that, had respondent never given the immunized testimony before the grand jury, he would have been entitled to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege in response to questions concerning the same subject matter as the questions asked at the deposition. The only question is whether respondent is barred from asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege because he previously testified under a statutory grant of immunity and because his answers to the deposition questions would be "directly or indirectly derived" from his prior immunized testimony.
*266 In my view, a trial judge may not constitutionally compel a witness to give incriminating testimony solely upon a finding that the witness' answers could not properly be used against him in a later criminal proceeding.[1] This Court's decision in *267 Kastigar v. United States, supra, does not support such compulsion. In Kastigar the Court was concerned with a federal statute that permits a United States Attorney, a federal agency, or a duly authorized representative of Congress to grant use immunity and thereby compel a witness to give incriminating testimony. See 18 U. S. C. งง 6002-6005. Kastigar itself involved a grant of use immunity conferred upon a witness called to testify before a grand jury. In upholding the use-immunity statute against constitutional attack, the Court held only that, pursuant to statutory authority to confer such immunity, the Government may constitutionally compel incriminating testimony in exchange for immunity from use or derivative use of that testimony. 406 U. S., at 462. Kastigar does not hold that a trial judge, acting without statutory authority to grant immunity, may rely on prior immunized testimony to overrule an otherwise valid assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege by a deponent in a civil case.
Whatever justification there may be for requiring a witness to give incriminating testimony in aid of a criminal investigation after the Government has granted use immunity, there is no similar justification for compelling a witness to give incriminating testimony for the benefit of a private litigant when the Government has not chosen to grant immunity. Any interest served by compelling the testimony *268 is insufficient to justify subjecting the witness to the risks that attend the compulsion of incriminating testimony.
Whenever a witness is forced to give incriminating testimony, there is a significant risk that fruits of that testimony will later be used against him. Further incriminating evidence that is derived from compelled testimony cannot always be traced back to its source:
"A witness who suspects that his compelled testimony was used to develop a lead will be hard pressed indeed to ferret out the evidence necessary to prove it. And of course it is no answer to say he need not prove it, for though the Court puts the burden of proof on the government, the government will have no difficulty in meeting its burden by mere assertion if the witness produces no contrary evidence. The good faith of the prosecuting authorities is thus the sole safeguard of the witness' rights. [E]ven their good faith is not a sufficient safeguard. For the paths of information through the investigative bureaucracy may well be long and winding, and even a prosecutor acting in the best faith cannot be certain that somewhere in the depths of his investigative apparatus, often including hundreds of employees, there was not some prohibited use of the compelled testimony." Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S., at 469 (MARSHALL, J., dissenting).
See also Piccirillo v. New York, 400 U. S. 548, 567-568 (1971) (BRENNAN, J., dissenting from dismissal of certiorari); Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525 (1958). If respondent is not allowed to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege, he may undergo numerous civil depositions, he may be forced to elaborate upon his original testimony,[2] and his testimony *269 may be broadly disseminated. As a result, he may face a much greater risk that tainted evidence will be used against him than he initially faced following the compulsion of the grand jury testimony. The opportunity to seek exclusion of tainted evidence is an incomplete protection, for "a court, at the time of the civil testimony, [cannot] predetermine the decision of the court in a subsequent criminal prosecution on the question whether the Government has met its burden of proving that `the evidence it proposes to use is derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled testimony.' " Ante, at 261 (quoting Kastigar v. United States, supra, at 460). Cf. Maness v. Meyers, 419 U. S. 449, 461-463 (1975).
It may be appropriate to subject a witness to these risks when the Government has conferred use immunity pursuant to statutory authorization, but the interests supporting compulsion of the testimony are far weaker here. In Kastigar the Court noted that the use-immunity statute advanced the Government interests in compelling incriminating testimony, 406 U. S., at 443-444, 446-447, and in leaving open the possibility of prosecuting the witness on the basis of "evidence from legitimate independent sources," id., at 461. In this case, however, neither Congress nor the United States Attorney has made a similar expression of Government interest.[3] The only public interest that would be served by forcing respondent to testify would be that of obtaining testimony *270 relevant to a private antitrust suit.[4] Even that interest would not be substantially served.[5]
If he were compelled to answer petitioners' deposition questions, Conboy would face a realistic risk that his testimony would lead to further incriminating evidence that he would be unable to exclude at a subsequent criminal prosecution. The interests underlying the use-immunity statute have no application here, and in my view the general interest in obtaining testimony cannot be considered an adequate substitute for those interests. I therefore join the Court in concluding that the Fifth Amendment does not permit a trial judge in a civil case to compel incriminating testimony solely upon a finding that the testimony would be "directly or *271 indirectly derived from" the witness' previously immunized testimony.
JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring in the judgment.
The Court today holds that
"a deponent's civil deposition testimony, closely tracking his prior immunized testimony, is not, without duly authorized assurance of immunity at the time, immunized testimony within the meaning of ง 6002, and therefore may not be compelled over a valid assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege." Ante, at 263-264 (footnote omitted).
JUSTICE BLACKMUN's opinion concurring in the judgment likewise states:
"In this case, we are asked to decide whether a witness who has testified before a federal grand jury pursuant to a grant of use immunity, 18 U. S. C. งง 6001-6005, may be forced to testify about the same events in a subsequent civil deposition, despite his assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. I agree with the Court's conclusion that he may not be forced so to testify." Post, at 272.
I understand these to be two statements of the same rule,[*] and I completely agree with both of them. For this reason, I concur in the judgment of the Court.
*272 I am not in entire agreement with everything in the majority opinion or in JUSTICE BLACKMUN's opinion. My differences with them, however, are over small matters of approach, and do not go to the substance of their conclusions. Moreover, this case arises in the rather specialized legal setting of use immunity statutes and does not require any broad-ranging analysis beyond the scope of the problem here presented. With these considerations in mind, I do not think it worthwhile to file a lengthy separate opinion setting forth these differences in detail.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring in the judgment.
In this case, we are asked to decide whether a witness who has testified before a federal grand jury pursuant to a grant of use immunity, 18 U. S. C. งง 6001-6005, may be forced to testify about the same events in a subsequent civil deposition, despite his assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. I agree with the Court's conclusion that he may not be forced so to testify. Because I reach this conclusion only by a different route, I write separately to explain my views.
I
The statute authorizing grants of use immunity, 18 U. S. C. ง 6002, provides that a witness may be ordered to testify despite his claim of a Fifth Amendment privilege, but "no testimony or other information compelled under the order (or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information) may be used against the witness in any criminal case" (with stated limited exceptions). The Court notes that the parties in this case "make their arguments in terms tracking those of the statute โ whether the deposition testimony is `derived from' the prior testimony." Ante, at 256. In the Court's view, however, "the crux of their dispute is whether the earlier grant of immunity itself compelled Conboy to talk." Ibid. It seems to me that by characterizing the issue in this way, the Court *273 begs the question now before us. The earlier grant of immunity, by itself, obviously does not compel Conboy to testify at a later deposition. It is the District Court that has sought to compel Conboy's testimony. Whether that court may do so is certainly the ultimate issue the Court must decide. But the Court's rephrasing does not bring us closer to the answer.
It is, of course, black-letter law that a witness cannot assert a Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify "if the testimony sought cannot possibly be used as a basis for, or in aid of, a criminal prosecution against the witness." Brown v. Walker, 161 U. S. 591, 597 (1896); see Mason v. United States, 244 U. S. 362, 365-366 (1917). In this case, however, the Court concludes that Conboy has a valid Fifth Amendment privilege "irrespective of whether . . . his [deposition] answers could have been admitted against him at a criminal trial." Ante, at 257, n. 13. The Court never explains the basis for this conclusion, and it seems to me that it is plainly wrong. If Conboy's deposition testimony cannot be used against him in a subsequent criminal prosecution, he cannot assert a Fifth Amendment privilege at his deposition and the District Court may compel him to testify. We must turn to ง 6002 to determine whether the testimony can be so used. Section 6002 informs us that when immunity has been granted, the witness is protected against use of "information directly or indirectly derived from [the immunized] testimony." Whether Conboy's deposition testimony is so derived is the real issue before the Court.
The Court finds this statutory language irrelevant to its analysis. The Court asserts that petitioners have a "need for admissible evidence," the Government has an "interest in limiting the scope of an immunity grant," and respondent Conboy has an "interest . . . that [his Fifth Amendment] protection be certain." Ante, at 258, 257. The Court then seeks to adjust these interests and arrive at a solution satisfactory to all. While this may be appropriate as a means of *274 setting public policy,[1] I cannot agree that it is an appropriate method of statutory interpretation.
As with every case involving the construction of a statute, "our starting point must be the language employed by Congress." Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 337 (1979). If we were forced to examine the language of ง 6002 without reference to its background and legislative history, the words of the statute might be sufficiently ambiguous so as to require resort to the policy concerns addressed by the Court. In this case, however, "regard for the specific history of the legislative process that culminated in the Act now before us affords more solid ground for giving it appropriate meaning." United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp., 344 U. S. 218, 222 (1952).
II
A
This Nation's first use immunity statute was passed by Congress in 1868. It provided that "no answer or other pleading of any party, and no discovery, or evidence obtained by means of any judicial proceeding from any party or witness. . . , shall be given in evidence, or in any manner used against such party or witness . . . , in any court of the United States . . . , in respect to any crime." Act of Feb. 25, 1868, ch. 13, ง 1, 15 Stat. 37. In Counselman v. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547 (1892), this Court held that immunity of this type could not be used to compel a witness to testify against himself, because it did not provide protection coextensive with the Fifth Amendment. The Counselman Court reasoned that the statute
*275 "protected [the witness] against the use of his testimony against him . . . in any criminal proceeding, in a court of the United States. But it had only that effect. It could not, and would not, prevent the use of his testimony to search out other testimony to be used in evidence against him . . . . It could not prevent the obtaining and the use of witnesses and evidence which should be attributable directly to the testimony he might give under compulsion, and on which he might be convicted, when otherwise, and if he had refused to answer, he could not possibly have been convicted." Id., at 564.
In concluding, the Court stated that "no statute which leaves the party or witness subject to prosecution after he answers the criminating question put to him, can have the effect of supplanting the privilege conferred by the Constitution of the United States." Id., at 585.
Due to this latter statement in the Counselman opinion, Congress and the lower courts assumed that only a broad "transaction" immunity would satisfy the requirements of the Fifth Amendment. Thus, beginning in 1893, Congress enacted a series of statutes giving a witness complete immunity from prosecution for any crime divulged in compelled testimony. This reliance on transaction immunity continued until 1970, when Congress enacted ง 6002 as part of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, Pub. L. 91-452, 84 Stat. 927.
In the meantime, however, the Court decided several cases suggesting that some forms of use immunity would be constitutionally permissible. In Murphy v. Waterfront Comm'n, 378 U. S. 52 (1964), the Court held that a state witness could not be compelled to give testimony that could be incriminating under federal law "unless the compelled testimony and its fruits cannot be used in any manner by federal officials in connection with a criminal prosecution against him." Id., at 79. In a footnote, the Court added that once a defendant had been immunized in a state proceeding, "the federal authorities *276 have the burden of showing that their evidence is not tainted by establishing that they had an independent, legitimate source for the disputed evidence." Id., at 79, n. 18. Several years later, in Gardner v. Broderick, 392 U. S. 273, 276 (1968