Originally Posted by SuckOnThis

Not necessarily true. On the Federal level every indictment is handed down by a Federal Grand Jury whose purpose is to investigate a crime and recommend to a prosecuter who should be charged and with what. If you are considered a witness and are subpeoned by a grand jury you have no choice, you have to talk or you will be charged with obstruction and criminal contempt. There is no invoking your 5th amendment rights to a grand jury as a witness, if you do the prosecutor normally grants you immunity to what you say (notice I said what YOU say, they can still charge you based on other evidence), once there is immunity to your testimony then you cannot invoke the 5th. Now if you're the 'target' of the grand jury you can invoke the 5th because obviously the prosecutor is not going to grant immunity. Susan McDougal is a good example of this, she was not the target of any investigation but she refused to testify to the grand jury and spent 18 months in prison because of it. Bottom line is when the govt wants info they get it.