Court Opinion

ID: 9476595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:00:17.742227+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:24.510719
License: Public Domain

JON O. NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in Judge Altimari’s opinion but write separately because I do not believe the path of our prior decisions nor the outcome to which they lead us in this case is quite so clear as my colleagues suggest.
The use of a grand jury subpoena to compel a person to “consent” 1 to disclosure and production of bank records concerning his account is a device of very recent origin. The first appellate decision to consider whether this device violates the privilege against self-incrimination appears to be United States v. Ghidoni, 732 F.2d 814 (11th Cir.1984), an appeal from a contempt adjudication for refusal to sign the “consent.” A divided panel approved the device, concluding that signing the “consent” form was not a “ ‘testimonial communication,’ ” id. at 816 (quoting Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 408, 96 S.Ct. 1569, 1579, 48 L.Ed.2d 39 (1976)), and for that reason was not protected by the privilege. The majority believed that a communication is testimonial when it asserts a fact (involves “ ‘truth-telling,’ ” id. at 818), and that the “consent” form contained no assertion of fact.2
*1172This Circuit first encountered the problem the following year in United States v. Davis, 767 F.2d 1025 (2d Cir.1985). Davis was an appeal from a conviction. One ground of the appeal was the use in evidence of bank records obtained as a result of a “consent” signed by the defendant under the compulsion of a court order. The Court apparently accepted the defendant’s premise that, if the “consent” had been compelled in violation of the self-incrimination privilege, the bank records should not have been admitted into evidence. The defendant had not tested the compulsion order by resisting the order and appealing a contempt adjudication. Facing the issue of whether the “consent” order violated the privilege, the Court conceded that the “consent” form “might have had communicative aspects of its own,” id. at 1040. The Court rejected this possibility in the following passage:
However, [the District Judge’s] carefully crafted order specifically provided that the Government could not use the directive as an admission that the bank accounts existed, that Davis had control over them, or for any other purpose. These limitations on the use of the directive] obviate any claim of testimonial compulsion. See Ghidoni, supra.

Id.

This passage is subject to two interpretations. One, urged by the appellants in the pending appeal, is that the District Judge in Davis had precluded use of the “consent” directive at trial by, in effect, conferring “use” immunity. Had this occurred, appellants point out, the District Judge would have been exceeding his authority, since the Supreme Court has made it clear that “use” immunity may not be informally conferred but requires a formal request by the Department of Justice pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 6002, 6003 (1982). United States v. Doe, 465 U.S. 605, 616 & n. 16, 104 S.Ct. 1237, 1244 & n. 16, 79 L.Ed.2d 552 (1984). From this interpretation of the Davis passage appellants contend that Davis rejected the self-incrimination objection on an impermissible basis and that we must now consider anew the issue of whether the “consent” directive is protected by the privilege.3
The second interpretation of the Davis passage, adopted by Judge Altimari’s opinion, is that the Davis panel did not think that the District Judge had endeavored to confer “use” immunity, but had considered him merely to have made an evidentiary ruling. Under this interpretation, the “consent” directive did not violate the self-incrimination privilege because it contained nothing of evidentiary significance. If I were focusing solely on the two sentences quoted above, I would have some doubts about that interpretation of Davis. However, my doubts are allayed by the citation to Ghidoni that immediately follows these sentences. Ghidoni explicitly pointed out, albeit in a footnote, that “use” immunity was not being conferred, that informal judicial “use” immunity was prohibited by United States v. Doe, supra, and that the “consent” directive was deemed not to be testimonial because it “lack[ed] any probative testimonial value on the issue of control or existence [of the bank records].” 732 F.2d at 818 n. 9 (emphasis added). By *1173citing Ghidoni, the Davis panel must have been adopting this aspect of Ghidoni’s reasoning.
Our Court again encountered a “consent” directive earlier this year in In re N.D.N.Y. Grand Jury Subpoena #86-0351-S (Alexander), 811 F.2d 114 (2d Cir. 1987), an appeal from a contempt adjudication. The rejection of the self-incrimination objection in Alexander perpetuated the uncertainty, created by Davis, as to whether this Circuit was relying on some form of unauthorized judicial “use” immunity or on evidentiary considerations. The Alexander panel noted that the “consent” directive, unlike the one used in Davis, “does not expressly provide that it may not be used as an admission by Alexander for any purpose.” Id. at 117. Nevertheless, the panel concluded, “it seems clear that the government could not so use it consistently with Alexander’s fifth amendment rights. See Davis, 767 F.2d at 1040.” Id. A permissible reading of this sentence, urged by the appellants in the pending case, is that the panel was conferring judicial “use” immunity at the appellate level, something at least as unauthorized as the informal district court “use” immunity proscribed by the Supreme Court in Doe. If the panel believed that use of the “consent” directive would have been inconsistent with the witness’s self-incrimination privilege and for that reason could not be used against the witness, there is some basis for believing that only the appellate preclusion ruling, rather than evidentiary considerations, led to rejection of the self-incrimination objection. However, there are countervailing considerations. First, the panel explicitly relied upon Ghidoni, and, like the Davis panel, must have understood, as the Ghidoni footnote made clear, that informal judicial “use” immunity was not an adequate answer to the self-incrimination objection. Second, the Alexander panel, noting that the “consent” directive “requires disclosure only if the bank has such accounts,” concluded that signing the directive “would not implicate any testimonial communication” and for that reason “does not impair Alexander’s rights under the fifth amendment.” Id. at 117 (emphasis in original).
Though the matter is not free from doubt, it appears that Davis and Alexander establish, as the law of this Circuit, that a “consent” for disclosure of records of any bank accounts a witness might have is not a testimonial communication, that it is consequently not protected by the self-incrimination privilege, and that a court order compelling the signing of such a “consent” does not violate the Fifth Amendment. These conclusions are in accord with those of the Eleventh Circuit, United States v. Ghidoni, supra, and the Fifth Circuit, In re United States Grand Jury Proceedings (Cid), 767 F.2d 1131 (5th Cir. 1985), but are not shared by the First Circuit, In re Grand Jury Proceedings (Ranauro), 814 F.2d 791 (1st Cir.1987).
Were the matter open in this Circuit, I would deem the issue to be extremely close. The premise of the conclusion rejecting a self-incrimination objection seems to be that a statement is within the scope of the privilege only if it asserts a fact. As Ghidoni puts it, the statement must serve a “truthtelling” function, 732 F.2d at 818. Judge Breyer, dissenting in Ranauro, similarly contends that a statement is within the scope of the privilege only when it is “the kind of communication that could, in principle, be false.” 814 F.2d at 798. These views of the privilege are derived largely from the Supreme Court’s decisions in Fisher and Doe. The issue in those cases was whether the act of producing documents, not itself the making of a statement, might nonetheless be within the privilege as an implied statement of some fact, for example, the fact that the witness has possession or control of the documents. Because the Supreme Court examined the act of production to see if it implied an assertion of fact, some have drawn the inference that a statement that does not assert a fact is not a testimonial communication. This inference is the inverse of the proposition that all assertions of fact are testimonial communications, and, as logicians inform us, an inverse of a proposition *1174is possibly but not necessarily so. See McCall, Basic Logic (2d ed. 1952).4
In Fisher and Doe the Supreme Court did not purport to announce a universal test for determining the scope of the privilege. It simply acknowledged that the privilege applies to acts that imply assertions of fact. It did not have occasion to consider the test for determining when the privilege applies to oral or written communications. What the Court has clearly decided in earlier cases is that certain acts, though incriminating, are not within the privilege. The privilege is not violated by compelling a person to furnish a handwriting exemplar, Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 266-67, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 1953, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967); to stand in a lineup or furnish a voice exemplar, United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 222-23, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1929-30, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); to provide a blood sample, Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 763-65, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1831-32, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966); or to don clothing, Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245, 252-53, 31 S.Ct. 2, 6, 54 L.Ed. 1021 (1910). What the Court has not yet decided is the issue posed by a “consent” directive: Does the privilege apply to every written or oral statement, the content of which might tend to incriminate? Gilbert and Wade do not answer that question. Even when a person is compelled to utter or write particular words for use as a voice or handwriting exemplar, the resulting oral or written statement is incriminating only because of the physical characteristics of the sounds or the lettering. It is not the content of the statement that creates the risk of incrimination.
To decide whether the privilege applies to every oral or written statement significant because of its content, including those that contain no assertion of fact, would require some consideration of the policies the privilege is designed to protect. As Dean Wigmore has pointed out, there are numerous policies implicated by the privilege, and no agreement on which policies are sufficiently central to warrant constitutional vindication. See 8 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2251 (McNaughton rev. 1961). Some emphasize the policy of preventing the unfairness that results when a person must face “the cruel trilemma of self-accusation, perjury or contempt,” Murphy v. Waterfront Commission, 378 U.S. 52, 55, 84 S.Ct. 1594, 1596, 12 L.Ed.2d 678 (1964). Vindicating that policy would lead to a requirement that a statement must assert the truth of something in order to be within the privilege. See Ranauro, supra, 814 F.2d at 797 (Breyer, J., dissenting). On the other hand, many emphasize the policy of striking the appropriate balance between the power of the state and the sovereignty of the individual. See Griswold, The Right To Be Let Alone, 55 Nw. U.L.Rev. 216 (1960). That policy would be vindicated by prohibiting the state from compelling a person to furnish any oral or written statement incriminating because of its content, whether or not the statement makes a factual assertion. That policy would appear to be seriously undermined by the use of state power to compel a person to utter or write words, the content of which signifies “consent” to anything.
I regret that in developing the law of this Circuit we have not confronted directly the issue whether a communication with incriminating content but without an assertion of fact is protected by the privilege.5 I *1175would find that issue troubling. Nevertheless, I am satisfied that our Circuit has reached the conclusion that a written communication expressing consent to disclosure of any bank records of the witness that might exist is not within the scope of the privilege. Obliged to accept that conclusion as the law of this Circuit, I concur in the opinion affirming the adjudication of contempt.6

. I put the word in quotation marks to acknowledge the oxymoronic nature of a compelled "consent.”

. The dissent in Ghidoni rests on the view that the “consent" was protected by the privilege because “it furnishes a link in the chain leading to procurement of the documents that the government intends to use to secure Ghidoni’s conviction.” 732 F.2d at 821 (Clark, J., dissenting). That argument is not entirely satisfactory. *1172The "link in the chain” basis for invoking the privilege normally applies when the compelled answer itself is plainly testimonial and the facts disclosed by the testimonial answer lead to discovery of incriminating testimony or real evidence. See Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 486, 71 S.Ct. 814, 818, 95 L.Ed. 1118 (1951); Blau v. United States, 340 U.S. 159, 161, 71 S.Ct. 223, 224, 95 L.Ed. 170 (1950); United States v. Burr, 25 F.Cas. 38 (C.C.D.Va.1807) (No. 14,692e). If the majority in Ghidoni is correct that the "consent” is not testimonial and for that reason not protected by the privilege, it cannot become so because it will lead to incriminating evidence. Much compelled evidence, such as handwriting exemplars, fingerprints, and blood samples, leads to the development of highly incriminating testimony, but compulsion of such evidence does not violate the privilege. See Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 764, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1832, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966).

. Though a subsequent panel is obliged to follow the precedents established by prior panels of this Circuit, including decisions that authoritatively construe and apply Supreme Court decisions, it is by no means clear that a subsequent panel must follow a Circuit precedent that has not reckoned with a prior Supreme Court decision with which the Circuit precedent is in irreconcilable conflict.

. In Fisher, Justice White’s opinion for the Court notes that in that case the Government was "in no way relying on the ’truthtelling' of the taxpayer to prove the existence of or his access to the documents.” 425 U.S. at 411, 96 S.Ct. at 1581. This may imply that "truthtelling” is a prerequisite for the privilege, but that again would be reasoning on the unsure ground of an inverse proposition. Concurring in the judgment in Fisher, Justice Brennan asserted, ”[I]t does not follow that papers are not ‘testimonial’ and thus producible because they contain no declarations.” Id. at 422-23, 96 S.Ct. at 1587.

. Whether the content of the “consent” directive might be incriminating, even if an assertion of fact is not required to invoke the privilege, is a matter of fair dispute. In Ranauro, the First Circuit outlined a chain of incrimination in which the furnishing of consent, followed by a bank’s production of records, would provide evidence that the records were those of the consenting witness. It seems clear that if the connection of the records to the witness were disputed, the "consent” document would have some materiality to the issue, that is, it would make the fact to be proved, control of the ac*1175count, more likely to be true than would be the case without the evidence. See Fed.R.Evid. 401 (using this test to define "relevant evidence”). On the other hand, evidence from the bank, which would be necessary to authenticate the records, would likely furnish such clear proof that the account is that of the witness, that evidence of his consent to disclosure arguably does not expose him to any "realistic threat of incrimination,” Fisher v. United States, supra, 425 U.S. at 412, 96 S.Ct. at 1581.

. Were the issue open, I would have acceded to appellants’ request that the "consent” form be revised to state expressly that it is being signed "under protest.” I would have thought that our supervisory power should be exercised to make clear that the "consent” is being signed, not merely pursuant to court order but also under protest. There are some documents a person would cheerfully sign pursuant to a court order. These witnesses ought to be able to make clear that a court has ordered them to sign a document they would otherwise have refused to sign. However, I agree that the “pursuant to court order” language is sufficient under the controlling authority of Alexander.