absolute right not to testify

In February 1971 petitioners were subpoenaed to appear before a United States grand jury in the Central District of California investigating violations of federal gambling and related laws. The government believed that petitioners were likely to assert their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Prior to the scheduled appearances, the government applied to the District Court for an order directing petitioners to answer questions and produce evidence before the grand jury under a grant of immunity conferred pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 6002-6003. Petitioners opposed issuance of the order, contending that the scope of the immunity provided by the statute was not coextensive with the scope of the privilege against self-incrimination and therefore was not sufficient to supplant the privilege and compel their testimony. The District Court rejected this contention and ordered petitioners to appear before the grand jury and answer its questions under the grant of immunity. Petitioners appeared but refused to answer questions, asserting their privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. They were brought before the District Court, and each persisted in his refusal to answer the grand jury's questions notwithstanding the grant of immunity. The court found both in contempt and committed them to the custody of the Attorney General until either they answered the grand jury's questions or the term of the grand jury expired. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the contempt findings. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve whether testimony may be compelled by granting immunity from the use of compelled testimony and evidence derived therefrom or whether transactional immunity is necessary.

On the morning of June 4, 1959, federal narcotics agents in San Francisco arrested Hom Way after six weeks of surveillance and recovered heroin from his possession. Hom Way, who had never before served as an informant, told the agents he had purchased an ounce of heroin the previous night from a man known to him only as "Blackie Toy," the proprietor of a laundry on Leavenworth Street. Later that morning six or seven agents went to Oye's Laundry at 1733 Leavenworth Street, operated by petitioner James Wah Toy. Agent Alton Wong, of Chinese ancestry, rang the bell and told Toy he was calling for laundry and dry cleaning. When Toy replied that the business did not open until 8 a.m. and began to close the door, Wong displayed his badge and identified himself as a federal narcotics agent. Toy immediately slammed the door and ran down the hallway to his living quarters at the rear of the premises, where his wife and child were sleeping in a bedroom. The agents broke open the door, followed Toy into the bedroom, and arrested him after he reached into a nightstand drawer. Toy made oral statements to the agents in the bedroom implicating a man he knew only as Johnny who lived on Eleventh Avenue. The agents went directly to that address, entered the premises, arrested Johnny Yee, and recovered several tubes containing just less than one ounce of heroin from a bureau drawer in the bedroom. Yee told the agents that Toy and another Chinese known to him only as "Sea Dog" had brought the heroin to him four days earlier. The agents then arrested petitioner Wong Sun without a warrant at his residence, relying on the statements obtained from Toy and Yee. Toy, Yee, and Wong Sun were each arraigned before a United States Commissioner on complaints charging violations of 21 U.S.C. § 174 and released on their own recognizance. Several days later Agent William Wong, also of Chinese ancestry, separately interrogated the three men at the Narcotics Bureau office, advised each of his right to counsel and to withhold information, and prepared typewritten statements in English from rough notes of the interviews. Toy read his statement aloud in English, made handwritten corrections, but refused to sign it. Wong Sun, who had difficulty understanding English, had the substance restated to him in Chinese, admitted the accuracy of the contents, but also refused to sign. At the ensuing jury-waived trial in the District Court for the Northern District of California the government introduced Toy's oral bedroom statements, the heroin surrendered by Yee, and the two unsigned statements. The trial court admitted all four items over defense objections that they were inadmissible as fruits of unlawful arrests or of attendant searches. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the convictions.

Petitioners Jefferson Doyle and Richard Wood were arrested together in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and charged with selling ten pounds of marijuana to William Bonnell, an informant working with the local narcotics unit. The evidence presented at their separate trials, held about one week apart in the Common Pleas Court, was identical in all material respects. Narcotics agents had arranged with Bonnell to set up a purchase using $1,320 collected from the unit, which Bonnell took to a bar in Dover, Ohio, where he met the petitioners. Subsequently, Doyle obtained the marijuana and met Bonnell and Wood at a parking lot in New Philadelphia, Ohio, where the transaction occurred under surveillance by four agents. After discovering they had been paid $430 less than agreed, Doyle and Wood chased Bonnell but were stopped by local police acting on instructions from the agents. Agent Kenneth Beamer arrived, arrested both petitioners, and administered Miranda warnings before a search of the car uncovered the $1,320. At trial, each petitioner testified that Bonnell had framed them by attempting to sell the marijuana to Doyle, who had changed his mind about the quantity, leading Bonnell to throw the money into the car and take the drugs back. During cross-examination, the prosecutor in each trial asked why the petitioner had not told this story to Agent Beamer at the time of arrest, and the trial court overruled defense objections to these questions. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth District affirmed the convictions, and the Supreme Court of Ohio denied further review before the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Adamson was tried and convicted by a jury in a California Superior Court of first-degree murder and first-degree burglary. The information charged him with prior convictions for burglary, larceny, and robbery. He answered that he had suffered those convictions, which under California Penal Code section 1025 barred the prosecution from alluding to them during the trial itself. Adamson did not testify. The prosecution introduced evidence that six of his fingerprints appeared on a freshly broken small door at the crime scene. He had later asked an unidentified person whether the latter would be interested in purchasing a diamond ring. Tops of women's stockings were found in his room though they did not match the lower portion recovered from under the victim's body. Under the California Constitution, article I, section 13, and Penal Code section 1323, the prosecutor commented to the jury on Adamson's failure to explain or deny the evidence against him. The trial court instructed the jury that it could consider that failure. Because Adamson had answered the prior-conviction charges affirmatively, California law would have permitted the prosecution to impeach him with those convictions on cross-examination had he taken the stand. The California Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and death sentence in People v. Adamson, 27 Cal. 2d 478, 165 P.2d 3. Adamson sought review in the United States Supreme Court, which granted certiorari under Judicial Code section 237 to consider his federal constitutional challenges to the California statute and its application at his trial.