Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 76

Cite as:  585 U. S. ____ (2018) 

5 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

parties to use subpoenas duces tecum not only with respect
to third parties but also with respect to each other.  Black-
stone 381. 

That question soon found an affirmative answer on both
sides of the Atlantic.  In the United States, the First Con-
gress established the federal court system in the Judiciary
Act of 1789.  As part of that Act, Congress authorized “all
the  said  courts  of  the  United  States  . . .  in  the  trial  of 
actions  at  law,  on  motion  and  due  notice  thereof  being 
given,  to  require  the  parties  to  produce  books  or  writings
in  their  possession  or  power,  which  contain  evidence  per-
tinent  to  the  issue,  in  cases  and  under  circumstances 
where they might be compelled to produce the same by the
ordinary rules of proceeding in chancery.”  §15, 1 Stat. 82.
From  that  point  forward,  federal  courts  in  the  United 
States  could  compel  the  production  of  documents  regard-
less  of  whether  those  documents  were  held  by  parties  to
the case or by third parties. 

In  Great  Britain,  too,  it  was  soon  definitively  estab-
lished  that  common-law  courts,  like  their  counterparts  in 
equity, could subpoena documents held either by parties to 
the  case  or  by  third  parties.    After  proceeding  in  fits  and
starts,  the  King’s  Bench  eventually  held  in  Amey  v.  Long
that the “writ of subpœna duces tecum [is] a writ of com-
pulsory obligation and effect in the law.”  9 East., at 486, 
103  Eng.  Rep.,  at  658.  Writing  for  a  unanimous  court,
Lord  Chief  Justice  Ellenborough  explained  that  “[t]he
right  to  resort  to  means  competent  to  compel  the  produc-
tion of written, as well as oral, testimony seems essential
to  the  very  existence  and  constitution  of  a  Court  of  Com-
mon Law.”  Id., at 484, 103 Eng. Rep., at 658.  Without the 
power  to  issue  subpoenas  duces  tecum,  the  Lord  Chief 
Justice  observed,  common-law  courts  “could  not  possibly
proceed with due effect.”  Ibid. 

The prevalence of subpoenas duces tecum at the time of 
the founding was not limited to the civil context.  In crim-