MORE ON INCRIMINATION

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

This letter is written, at the risk of repetition, because Mr. Herbert Semmel, in his letter printed in Saturday's CRIMSON, discloses some continued misunderstanding about where I stand on the constitutional privilege of a witness to decline to incriminate himself.

Mr. Semmel quotes from a paper of mine which appeared in the November, 1962, Kansas Law Review, and which was also published separately by the Roger Baldwin Foundation. As I said, both in the Kansas article and in the letter to the CRIMSON from Mr. Sutherland and myself, there is no legal privilege to shield one's friends by silence. One who is asked to testify to matters which actually tend to show this guilt does not lose the immunity he would have available, by reason of the fact that his claim of the privilege would not only protect him, but would incidentally protect his associates as well. But no matter what a man's code of friendship may be. If he swears that an answer will feud to incriminate him when he knows that it will not, he is searing falsely. I certainly am no advocate of perjury.

As Mr. Sutherland and I point out. If a man's conscience compels him to keep silent without legal excuse, he must expect to undergo whatever punishment the law a claim of privilege to remain silent may have a very damaging effect on a person's career.

To the extent that any language of mine on the Kansas article may have created any misunderstanding about my ideas this letter will I hope, career it. Zechariah Chafee, Jr.   University Professor