And Then There Were Three: Third Grand Jury Refuser Goes to Prison

[Yo_Mama]

65. If that is true, why would she not testify?

She cannot be prosecuted for anything she says. She can, however, be prosecuted for perjury if she testifies and lies.

It sounds as if they have enough on her to be able to prove some degree of involvement (so can prosecute for perjury) and are trying to get her to rat out the more-involved others.

They probably need that for conspiracy charges, which are more serious than riot and vandalism.

As to the contempt thing, it is truly necessary to make the justice system work, even if there are often cases when the use seems problematic and troublesome.

For example, suppose you are prosecuting a wealthy white-collar criminal, and you line up the individuals in the company who had tangential knowledge to testify against him (or her). Without the ability to force testimony, what would prevent the wealthy perp from just buying all the witnesses off (and also threatening them)? Indeed, if they had the option to refuse to testify, I would bet that they would be blackballed from further employment in their industry if they did testify.

The only right any individual has not to testify when subpoenaed is when such testimony would incriminate that individual, and that escape clause has been removed in this case.