But Robert Stewart refused to help his son, instead asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to avoid testifying.
Without immunity, many officials may take that route, and the fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination, to weasel their way out of telling the truth.
After relaying a story about personally attempting to hack David Beckham's phone it took a personal warning from Lord Leveson on self-incrimination to halt him in full flow.
By extending the privilege against self-incrimination to state defendants, Malloy laid the groundwork for one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century: Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
He did not talk to the committee; earlier this month, his lawyer told Congress that his client was innocent but that he would assert his constitutional right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying.
He is scheduled to appear this week before the House Energy and Commerce Committee but is expected to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, to avoid answering questions.
Mayor Robertson has acknowledged he took the Fifth Amendment against forced self-incrimination to most questions during a recent grand jury appearance, a fact that Mr. Crenshaw underlined at their final primary debate.
The Miranda opinion itself begins by stating that the court granted certiorari "to explore some facets of the problems of applying the privilege against self-incrimination to in-custody interrogation, and to give concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow".
The president of the Loch Harris Corporation, a small Texas company whose share price soared briefly last year after the company said it had developed a technology to detect land mines, has invoked his protection against self-incrimination to avoid testifying about the accuracy of those claims.
Other rights: to have the confidential assistance of an attorney; to confront adverse witnesses; to be protected from self-incrimination; to demand that the prosecution prove not just an evil deed but an evil intention (called mens rea); and to be protected from retroactive laws.
In response to communist witch-hunts, many witnesses and employees chose to use the fifth amendment protection against self-incrimination to avoid divulging information about their political beliefs.
