684
Opinion of the Court
limitation on the privilege, the Murphy Court expressed a comparatively ambitious conceptualization of personal privacy underlying the Clause, one capable of supporting, if not demanding, the scope of protection that Balsys claims. As the Court of Appeals recognized, if we take the Murphy opinion at face value, the expansive rationale can be claimed quite as legitimately as the Murdock-Malloy-Kastigar understanding of Murphy's result, and Balsys's claim accordingly requires us to decide whether Murphy's innovative side is as sound as its traditional one. We conclude that it is not.
As support for the view that the Court had previously misunderstood the English rule, Murphy relied, first, on two preconstitutional English cases, East India Co. v. Campbell, 1 Ves. sen. 246, 27 Eng. Rep. 1010 (Ex. 1749), and Brown-sword v. Edwards, 2 Ves. sen. 243, 28 Eng. Rep. 157 (Ch. 1750), for the proposition that a witness in an English court was permitted to invoke the privilege based on fear of prosecution in a foreign jurisdiction. See 378 U. S., at 58- 59. Neither of these cases is on point as holding that proposition, however. In East India Co., a defendant before the Court of Exchequer, seeking to avoid giving an explanation for his possession of certain goods, claimed the privilege on the ground that his testimony might subject him to a fine or corporal punishment. The Court of Exchequer found that the defendant would be punishable in Calcutta, then an English Colony, and said it would "not oblige one to discover that, which, if he answers in the affirmative, will subject him to the punishment of a crime." 1 Ves. sen., at 247, 27 Eng. Rep., at 1011. In Brownsword, a defendant before the Court of Chancery claimed the privilege on the ground that her testimony could render her liable to prosecution in an English ecclesiastical court. "The general rule," the court said, "is that no one is bound to answer so as to subject himself to punishment, whether that punishment arises by the ecclesiastical law of the land." 2 Ves. sen., at 245, 28 Eng.
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