United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Mikutaitis v. United States, 478 U.S. 1306 (1986)

Mikutaitis v. United States

No. A-195

Decided September 17, 1986

478 U.S. 1306

Syllabus

An application to stay the District Court's order (and the Court of Appeals' mandate) requiring that applicant report for custody pursuant to the District Court's earlier order finding him in contempt for refusing to testify at a deposition hearing in connection with denaturalization proceedings in another District Court against a third person -- applicant having refused to testify despite a grant of immunity and an order sealing his deposition -- is granted. Applicant contended that his testimony would tend to prove that he cooperated with the Nazi Government, committed war crimes, and engaged in treasonous activity against the Soviet Union during World War II; that his testimony could be used by the Soviet Union in a criminal proceeding against him if he were denaturalized and deported there and his testimony came to the Soviet Government's attention; and that, because the grant of immunity and the sealing order did not adequately protect against the use of his testimony in a foreign criminal prosecution, he had a Fifth Amendment privilege against testifying. The question raised by this application, concerning the adequacy of the sealing order is sufficiently similar to the question identified in Araneta v. United States, ante, p. 1301 (BURGER, C.J., in chambers), to make it appropriate for the full Court to consider this application at the same time it decides whether or not to grant certiorari in Araneta.