In the case of Knapp v. Schweitzer, Judge of the Court of General Sessions et al., 1957, petitioner Knapp was held in contempt and sentenced to jail for refusing to answer questions before a grand jury on grounds that his answers might incriminate him. The Supreme Court ruled against Knapp, stating that he could not refuse to testify based on self-incrimination as New York law provided immunity from prosecution for any matter about which he testified. Therefore, there was no risk of self-incrimination because anything said couldn't be used against him later in court. However, this decision did not extend beyond state boundaries; if federal authorities wanted to prosecute based on testimony given under such immunity provisions at the state level they were free to do so.

In the dissenting opinion for KNAPP v. SCHWEITZER, Justice Brennan argued that the majority's decision violated Knapp's Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. He contended that compelling a person to answer questions in front of a grand jury about their own potential criminal conduct is inherently coercive and violates constitutional protections. Furthermore, he disagreed with the majority’s assertion that immunity from prosecution sufficiently protects an individual’s rights in such situations; instead, he believed it merely substituted one form of coercion for another by forcing individuals to trade their silence for freedom from prosecution. In his view, this did not eliminate the element of compulsion but rather transformed its nature.