Privilege against self-incrimination

The privilege against self-incrimination becomes a pivotal protection for Rusty Sabich as the investigation turns toward him. It permits him to decline to answer questions that may incriminate him, but it does not erase the evidentiary pressure or resolve the consequences of what he may already have concealed. The novel presents the privilege both as a legal right and as a visible change in Rusty's position: the prosecutor who once worked cases from one side of the process now faces questioning from the other.

The privilege amid the investigation

After investigators took materials from his home, Rusty called Sandy Stern, who had him inventory what had been taken. Rusty voluntarily provided a blood sample downtown the next day. At that point, he was unindicted and believed he would not be charged; he hoped to keep the episode from damaging his professional reputation. He and Stern disagreed about whether he should testify, with Stern advising that pretrial statements would chiefly help the prosecution prepare its case.

The blood-test result changed Rusty's calculation. It identified him as a secretor of A-type antibodies, like the man who had last been with Carolyn Polhemus. Rusty understood the reported odds of coincidence to be about one in ten and recognized that the possibility of clearing himself quickly had passed. The sequence places the privilege beside evidence he had already supplied voluntarily: refusing to answer questions would not undo the test result or remove its significance to the investigation.

Invocation before the grand jury

In May, Tommy Molto would not accept a substitute for Rusty's assertion of the privilege. Rusty therefore appeared before the grand jury and invoked it in response to thirty-six questions, declining each answer on the ground that it might tend to incriminate him. The repeated response turns the privilege into a formal boundary around his testimony, but also marks his changed status. Stern's remark about seeing the world from the other side underscores the reversal: Rusty is no longer simply the official gathering or assessing evidence; he is the person whose answers may become evidence against him.

What the privilege does not settle

Stern also warned Rusty of a distinct danger: he could face exposure for willfully concealing facts material to the investigation. Stern said a jury might believe Rusty had been in Carolyn's apartment on the night of her murder and should have spoken up, and that his account in a meeting with Raymond Horgan, Tommy Molto, Nico Delia Guardia, and Lydia MacDougall could be damaging. Stern also pointed to Rusty's conversation with Dan Lipranzer about the MUD sheets from Rusty's home. The warning separates the act of refusing grand-jury answers from allegations about earlier conduct; invoking the privilege does not, by itself, settle whether Rusty concealed relevant facts or misled investigators.

The rule thus protects Rusty's choice not to provide potentially incriminating testimony while leaving the surrounding case unresolved. Its use is consequential but not exculpatory: it limits what he will say under questioning, even as the blood-test result and Stern's warning about possible obstruction keep the investigation's risks in view.