United States v. William Ludwig Ullmann

221 F.2d 760

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: June 6, 1955
• Docket: 23555_1
• Status: Published

Opinions

FRANK, Circuit Judge.

The facts are fully stated in Judge Weinfeld’s excellent opinion, 128 F.Supp. 617, the reasoning and conclusions of which we adopt.

It is well to add a few words about defendant’s contention concerning the doctrine of Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 16 S.Ct. 644, 40 L.Ed. 819, which held that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination relates solely to testimony that might lead to defendant’s prosecution for a crime. Defendant asks us to modify this doctrine in the light of new circumstances which have since arisen.¹ We are not prepared'to say that this suggestion lacks all merit.² But our possible views on the subject have no significance. For an inferior court like ours may not modify a Supreme Court doctrine in the absence of .my indication of new doctrinal trends in that Court’s opinions,³ and we perceive none that are pertinent here, Accordingly, the argument must be addressed not to our ears but to eighteen others in Washington, D. C.

Affirmed.

2 . Cf. Taylor, Grand Inquest (1955) 217-221, 296-300; Griswold, The Fifth Amendment Today (1955) 80-81.

3 . See Perkins v. Endicott Johnson Corp., 2 Cir., 128 F.2d 208, 217-218;

“Legal doctrines, as first enunciated, often prove to be inadequate under the impact of ensuing experience in their practical application. And when a lower court perceives a pronounced new doctrinal trend in Supreme Court decisions, it is its duty, cautiously to be sure, to follow not to resist it.”

See also Picard v. United Aircraft Corp., 2 Cir., 128 F.2d 632, 636; Judge Parker’s opinion in Barnette v. West Virginia State Board of Education, D.C., 47 F.Supp. 251, 252-253.