Court Opinion

ID: 9473784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:39:29.965023+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:43.842687
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Circuit Judge,
concurring, with whom ADAMS, Circuit Judge, joins.
Although I agree with much of the reasoning of Judge Garth’s dissent, I agree with the result reached by Judge Gibbons that the judgment of the district court holding Brown in contempt of court must be reversed; hence this separate opinion.
Judge Gibbons is apparently of the view that the Supreme Court does not treat custodians of corporate records differently from other record-keepers for fifth amendment purposes. He posits that the Court holds corporate custodians to be protected by the fifth amendment with respect to testimony regarding corporate documents, whether such testimony is verbal or results from the act of production itself. See supra at 527-529. According to Judge Gibbons, cases suggesting the contrary, such as Bellis v. United States, 417 U.S. *53085, 94 S.Ct. 2179, 40 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974), address only the question whether the documents themselves were privileged, and not whether the act of production by the custodian would constitute testimonial self-incrimination. See supra at 530 n. 1.
I disagree with this interpretation of the relevant case law. Rather, I agree with Judge Garth, see infra at 532 (Garth, J. dissenting), that the Court continues to make a distinction between custodians of collective entity records and other record-keepers. While non-collective entity custodians can claim a fifth amendment privilege with respect to both oral testimony and the act of production, see United States v. Doe, 465 U.S. 605, 104 S.Ct. 1237, 1241-43, 79 L.Ed.2d 552 (1984), collective entity custodians can claim a blanket privilege only regarding oral testimony.1 See Curcio v. United States, 354 U.S. 118, 77 S.Ct. 1145, 1 L.Ed.2d 1225 (1957). To the extent that mere production of the documents in compliance with a subpoena would result in an implicit admission that they are authentic corporate documents under the control of the custodian, however, the cases make clear that the custodian is not protected by the fifth amendment. See, e.g., United States v. White, 322 U.S. 694, 699, 64 S.Ct. 1248, 1251, 88 L.Ed. 1542 (1944); Wilson v. United States, 221 U.S. 361, 378-79, 31 S.Ct. 538, 543, 55 L.Ed. 771 (1911). The rationale behind this distinction is that the custodian should not be able to shield the collective entity, which has no fifth amendment privilege, from governmental scrutiny by asserting a personal right. Thus, the custodian is deemed to have waived his privilege with respect to any testimonial incrimination inherent in the act of production by acceptance of his corporate position. See United States v. White, 322 U.S. at 700, 64 S.Ct. at 1251.
As recently as Fisher v. United States, the Court reaffirmed the difference in fifth amendment treatment as between corporate and other record-keepers. The Court stated that a collective-entity custodian must comply with a subpoena duces tecum, even though he has been responsible for keeping the books and his producing them would itself be sufficient authentication to permit their introduction against him.2 Nothing in United States v. Doe, which addressed the question whether a sole-proprietor can claim the fifth amendment with respect to the production of business documents, and which is an application of Fisher, can be taken to have eradicated the historic line drawn in fifth amendment jurisprudence between record-keepers of collective and non-collective entities.3
*531Were this a “mere production” case, in which the only potential incrimination to Brown from the production of the corporate documents was that which is inherent in the production itself — i.e., an acknowledgment that the documents exist, that the custodian has control over them, and that they are authentic corporate documents — I would agree with the result reached by Judge Garth. In my view, however, the case involves testimonial incrimination beyond that inherent in the act of production because of the wording of the grand jury subpoena. It is for this reason that I concur in the result reached by Judge Gibbons.
The specific terms of the grand jury subpoena, in pertinent part, are as follows:
To: James Gilbert Brown, Custodian of Records J. Gilbert Brown Co., P.C.
You are hereby commanded to appear in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania at Federal Grand Jury Room ... and bring with you all workpapers, reports, records, correspondence and copies of tax returns in your possession or under your control relating to accounting services performed by you or under your supervision on behalf of the below-listed persons or entities for the years 1977 through 1982.
(Emphasis added.) As I read this subpoena, its request for production constitutes, in effect, an interrogatory that asks Brown, “Did you prepare the documents?” Production of documents pursuant to the subpoena would consequently convey implied and probably incriminatory testimony by Brown that he had prepared, or had supervised the preparation of, the documents produced.4 Brown’s compliance with the subpoena, therefore, would potentially result in substantially more incriminating testimony than that necessarily resulting from the production of corporate documents. Moreover, I cannot say with confidence that a trial court would hold inadmissible against Brown any such implied testimony.5 Thus, the document request goes far beyond what Fisher permits and crosses the line into an area protected by the fifth amendment.6
I therefore believe that Brown’s claim of privilege may have properly been invoked; hence, the contempt sanction should be vacated. If the government makes a further effort to enforce the subpoena duces tecum, then the district court would have to determine whether production of the documents would in fact incriminate Brown.7 I also believe that if the government were to narrow the subpoena by eliminating its impermissible interrogatory character, it *532could obtain the records without difficulty for the reasons explained by Judge Garth in his dissent.

. I note in this regard my belief that any intimation in Judge Gibbons’ opinion that this case involves the question whether Brown may be compelled by a subpoena to give oral testimony before the grand jury, see supra at 526, is inaccurate. Rather, in my view, the key issue is whether Brown personally may be forced to produce those documents in light of his claim that the very act of production would, given the wording of the subpoena, compel him to "testify" that the documents are in his possession and were prepared by him or under his supervision. See infra at 531.

. In pertinent part, the Supreme Court stated:
Moreover, in Wilson v. United States, supra; Dreier v. United States, supra [221 U.S. 394, 31 S.Ct. 550, 55 L.Ed. 784 (1911)]; United States v. White, supra; Bellis v. United States, supra; and In re Harris, supra the custodian of corporate, union, or partnership books or those of a bankrupt business was ordered to respond to a subpoena for the business’ books even though doing so involved a 'representation that the documents produced are those demanded by the subpoena,’ Curcio v. United States, 354 U.S., at 125, 77 S.Ct., at 1150, 1 L.Ed.2d, at 1231.14
14 In these cases compliance with the subpoena is required even though the books have been kept by the person subpoenaed and his producing them would itself be sufficient authentication to permit their introduction against him.
Fisher, 425 U.S. at 412 n. 14, 96 S.Ct. at 1582 n. 14.

. I recognize that Fisher and Doe have changed the fifth amendment landscape by refocusing the inquiry on the act of production and not on the nature of the documents at issue. The preFisher cases distinguished between corporate documents, which were afforded no fifth amendment protection, and other business records, which were held to be protected by the fifth amendment. In Fisher and Doe, however, the Court held that voluntarily prepared business records of any kind are not entitled to fifth amendment protection, and that only the act of *531producing the documents might be privileged. See Doe, 104 S.Ct. at 1241-42; Fisher, 425 U.S. at 409-410, 96 S.Ct. at 1580. Thus, one basis for the pre-Fisher distinction between corporate and other records-keepers — that only the latter were keepers of records with fifth amendment protection — was eroded by these later cases. Nevertheless, the other rationale for treating corporate custodians differently, the concern that otherwise they could protect the corporation itself from disclosure, survives the Fisher and Doe decisions. While these cases may in fact herald an end to the distinction between corporate and non-corporate custodians, the Supreme Court has yet to take such a step and it is not for this Court to do so.

. I thus disagree with Judge Garth, at 535, that Brown was never asked the “critical question” about preparation merely because he refused to produce the documents.

. The mechanism of admissibility would, I presume, be similar to what is involved when production is deemed sufficient to establish authentication. See Fisher, 425 U.S. at 412 n. 12, 96 S.Ct. at 1582 n. 12. The production would constitute a non-verbal assertive act of a party defendant which is non-hearsay under Fed.R.Evid. 801. See Fed.R.Evid. 801(a)(2) & (d)(2)(A).

. Brown represents in his supplemental brief that there are other employees of the corporation who may have been able to produce the documents but that the government insisted on production and authentication of the documents by Brown himself. While these representations do not affirmatively appear of record, they are made by responsible counsel and have not been controverted by the government; if true, they corroborate Brown’s position by suggesting that it is the government’s strategy to make testimonial use of production by Brown.

. Presumably the focal point of the inquiry would be the import of his having prepared the returns in question.