Case Citator › Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor

Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
378 U.S. 52
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
120 of 120
Citing cases (total)
1,502
Treatment dates
1997–1998
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor is limited among the reviewed cases: all 120 flagged citations have been read, with the 2 confirmed limitations listed below. The Eleventh Circuit, sitting en banc, confined Murphy to jurisdictions within the United States constitutional system and declined to extend its self-incrimination rule to fear of prosecution by a foreign sovereign.
More on how this was screened

The Supreme Court then adopted that boundary in United States v. Balsys and expressly rejected Murphy's broader historical rationale while preserving its domestic state-federal holding. The remaining citing opinions applied Murphy positively, reported Murphy's own treatment of older self-incrimination precedents, or used nearby adverse language for another case, argument, conviction, ruling, or statute.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

1,502 later cases cite Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor; 120 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The en banc Eleventh Circuit confined Murphy to compelled testimony potentially used within the United States constitutional system and declined to extend its rule to fear of prosecution by a separate foreign sovereign.

    United States v. Gecas · Eleventh Circuit (en banc) · filed

    Even assuming that the Murphy Court’s discussion of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English case law- supports Gecas’ invocation of the privilege, we view this discussion as dicta. See Murphy, 378 U.S. at 81-82 & n. 1, 84 S.Ct. at 1619 & n. 1 (Harlan, J., concurring in the judgment); In Re Parker, 411 F.2d 1067, 1070 (10th Cir.1969), vacated as moot sub nom. Parker v. United States, 397 U.S. 96, 90 S.Ct. 819, 25 L.Ed.2d 81 (1970). As noted above, the defendants in Murphy did not face potential conviction under the laws of another sovereign nation. They faced potential conviction in a different court within our unified federal system. Therefore, any discussion in Murphy suggesting that the possibility of a foreign conviction permitted the invocation of the privilege could not have been necessary to the Court’s decision. Murphy does not foreclose our own consideration of whether a fear of foreign conviction can justify invocation of the Self-Incrirnination Clause.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Supreme Court held that fear of prosecution by a foreign sovereign falls outside the Self-Incrimination Clause and rejected Murphy's broader historical rationale beyond its domestic response to Malloy.

    United States v. Balsys · Supreme Court of the United States · filed

    In sum, to the extent that the Murphy majority went beyond its response to Malloy and undercut Murdock’s rationale on historical grounds, its reasoning cannot be accepted now. Long before today, indeed, Murphy’s history was shown to be fatally flawed.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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