Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-402_h315.pdf
Page Number: 85

14 

CARPENTER v. UNITED STATES 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

to carry on the administration of justice.’ ”  Ibid. 

Hale,  however,  did  not  entirely  liberate  subpoenas 
duces  tecum  from  Fourth  Amendment  constraints.    While 
refusing  to  treat  such  subpoenas  as  the  equivalent  of 
actual  searches,  Hale  concluded  that  they  must  not  be
unreasonable.  And it held that the subpoena duces tecum 
at issue was “far too sweeping in its terms to be regarded
as  reasonable.”    Id.,  at  76.  The  Hale  Court  thus  left  two 
critical  questions  unanswered:  Under  the  Fourth  Amend-
ment,  what  makes  the  compulsory  production  of  docu-
ments  “reasonable,”  and  how  does  that  standard  differ 
from the one that governs actual searches and seizures?

The Court answered both of those questions definitively 
in  Oklahoma  Press  Publishing  Co.  v.  Walling,  327  U. S. 
186  (1946),  where  we  held  that  the  Fourth  Amendment 
regulates the compelled production of documents, but less
stringently  than  it  does  full-blown  searches  and  seizures. 
Oklahoma  Press  began  by  admitting  that  the  Court’s 
opinions  on  the  subject  had  “perhaps  too  often  . . .  been 
generative of heat rather than light,” “mov[ing] with vari-
ant  direction”  and  sometimes  having  “highly  contrasting”
“emphasis and tone.”  Id., at 202.  “The primary source of 
misconception  concerning  the  Fourth  Amendment’s  func-
tion” in this context, the Court explained, “lies perhaps in 
the identification of cases involving so-called ‘figurative’ or
‘constructive’  search  with  cases  of  actual  search  and  sei-
zure.”  Ibid.    But  the  Court  held  that  “the  basic  distinc-
tion” between the compulsory production of documents on 
the  one  hand,  and  actual  searches  and  seizures  on  the 
other,  meant  that  two  different  standards  had  to  be  ap-
plied.  Id., at 204. 

Having  reversed  Boyd’s  conflation  of  the  compelled
production  of  documents  with  actual  searches  and  sei-
zures,  the  Court  then  set  forth  the  relevant  Fourth 
Amendment  standard  for  the  former.    When  it  comes  to 
“the production of corporate or other business records,” the