How have the courts interpreted the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination?

The first of these is Simmons v. United States (1968) 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247, where the defendant testified at a pretrial suppression hearing that he was the owner of a particular suitcase, seeking by his testimony to establish his standing to contest a search. At trial, over his objection, his testimony was introduced by the government. The court, through Justice Harlan, reversed the conviction, finding it intolerable that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination should have to be surrendered in order to assert the Fourth Amendment claim.

Three years later, in Crampton v. Ohio, sub nom. McGautha v. California (1971) 402 U.S. 183, 91 S.Ct. 1454, 28 L.Ed.2d 711, vacated on other grounds (1972) 408 U.S. 941, 92 S.Ct. 2873, 33 L.Ed.2d 765, Justice Harlan wrote again for the court as it reexamined Simmons and considered its implications in a different context. There, a defendant challenged an Ohio law which provided for a jury determination of guilt and penalty in a murder case after a single trial and in a single verdict. The defendant argued that under the Ohio single-trial procedure he could remain silent on the issue of guilt only at the cost of surrendering any chance to plead his case on the issue of punishment. The court rejected the attack, likening the tension to tensions existing elsewhere, such as when the defendant must choose whether to testify and risk opening the door to otherwise inadmissible evidence damaging to his case.