Typically given during a grand jury, a person can receive many different types of immunity. This allows/forces them to testify (under the threat of contempt) with the presumed benefit of limited criminal exposure to their testimony. One frequent form of immunity is "use and derivative use".
The federal immunity statute (18 U.S.C. § 6002) allows the government to prosecute the witness using evidence obtained independently of the witness's immunized testimony. Section 6002 provides:
[N]o testimony or other information compelled under the order (or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information) may be used against the witness in any criminal case, except a prosecution for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with the order.
42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5947 controls immunity in Pennsylvania and Bucks County. It states that "no testimony or other information compelled under an immunity order, or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information, may be used against a witness in any criminal case, except that such information may be used."
In
Commonwealth v. Swinehart, the Defendant appealed the decision of the
Pennsylvania Superior Court, which affirmed the judgment of the trial court which found him in civil contempt and sentenced him for criminal contempt after he refused to testify upon being granted immunity pursuant to 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5947 for testimony in the murder trial of an alleged co-conspirator.
In this case, the Defendant appealed the decision of the superior court, which affirmed the judgment of the trial court which found him in civil contempt and sentenced him for criminal contempt after he was granted immunity for testimony in the murder trial of an alleged co-conspirator but refused to testify. On appeal, the court affirmed the conviction after reviewing the text and history of Pa. Const. art. I, § 9 and 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5947, caselaw from other states, and policy considerations. The court held that the privilege against self-incrimination under art. I, § 9 was more expansive than that under U.S. Const. amend. V; it was not, however, so expansive that it would require transactional immunity rather than the use and derivative use immunity provided in § 5947. The court held that in the prosecution of a defendant subsequent to his immunized testimony, the evidence offered by the commonwealth would have to be reviewed with the most careful scrutiny, that is, the commonwealth would have to prove, of record, by the heightened standard of clear and convincing evidence, that the evidence upon which the subsequent prosecution was brought arose wholly from independent sources.
The court affirmed defendant's criminal contempt conviction, holding that the Pennsylvania Constitution's privilege against self-incrimination, although greater than the Fifth Amendment's, was satisfied by statutory use and derivative use immunity, and the commonwealth would have to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that its evidence in any prosecution subsequent to the immunized testimony arose wholly from independent sources.
In the end, the entire idea of the immunity is to "immunize" a person from criminal charges for what they testify to under oath. It should be negotiated by your
Bucks County criminal lawyer prior to any conversation you have with law enforcement.