Opinion ID: 1194109
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Privilege of Representatives of Corporations

Text: We now turn our attention to the personal claims of the privilege by the individual petitioners A, B, D, E and G with regard to the command in the subpoenas to produce specified documents (subpoena duces tecum ). While it is clear the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination protects a person from compelled production of his private papers and effects, the same person cannot invoke the privilege to avoid producing the records of a collective entity which are in his possession in a representative capacity, even if these records might incriminate him personally. Bellis v. United States, supra ; see Annot., Self-Incrimination  Corporate Records, 52 A. L.R.3d 636. All of the exhibits ordered by the respondent to be produced by the individual petitioners are corporate documents and records which were in their custody as representatives of the corporate petitioners. Thus, the respondents' order which directed the individual petitioners to produce the corporate records under their care, custody and control was a proper application of the law and did not violate the individual petitioners' Fifth Amendment rights.