Colombo v. New York

Despite a grant of immunity in response to the assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege not to be a witness against himself, petitioner refused to answer questions put to him before a Kings County, New York, grand jury. On December 7, 1965, a trial judge found that *10the questions put had been proper and directed petitioner to answer them. Petitioner refused; the trial court, after allowing petitioner a week’s time to change his mind, signed a commitment order stating that by “his contumacious and unlawful refusal after being sworn as a witness to answer any legal and proper interrogatories…