Is confidential marital communications privilege more sacred than the Fifth Amendment?

MultiRegion, United States of America

The following excerpt is from U.S. v. Premises Known as 281 Syosset Woodbury Road, Woodbury, N.Y., 71 F.3d 1067 (2nd Cir. 1995):

The confidential marital communications privilege is no more sacred than the Fifth Amendment. When a witness who has previously testified voluntarily about the contents of certain confidential marital communications seeks, later, to invoke the privilege to protect other communications, the court is confronted with "a significant danger of distortion. 'To uphold a claim of privilege [in such a case] ... would open the way to distortion of facts by permitting a witness to select any stopping place in the testimony.' " Id. at 288 (quoting Rogers v. United States, 340 U.S. 367, 371, 71 S.Ct. 438, 440-41, 95 L.Ed. 344 (1951)). In such a situation, this privilege, no less than the Fifth Amendment, can be deemed to have been waived.

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