Court Opinion

ID: 9426377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:17:42.718928+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:00.589284
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Marshall,
dissenting.
In California Bankers Assn. v. Shultz, 416 U. S. 21 (1974), the Court upheld the constitutionality of the recordkeeping requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. 12 U. S. C. § 1829b (d). I dissented, finding the required maintenance of bank customers’ records to be a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and unlawful in the absence of a warrant and probable cause. While the Court in California Bankers Assn. did not then purport to decide whether a customer could later challenge the bank’s delivery of his records to the Government pursuant to subpoena, I warned:
“[I]t is ironic that although the majority deems the bank customers’ Fourth Amendment claims premature, it also intimates that once the bank has made copies of a customer’s checks, the customer no longer has standing to invoke his Fourth Amendment rights when a demand is made on the bank by the Government for the records. ... By accepting the Government’s bifurcated approach to the recordkeeping requirement and the acquisition of the records, the majority engages in a hollow charade whereby Fourth Amendment claims are to be labeled premature until such time as they can be deemed too late.” 416 U. S., at 97.
Today, not surprisingly, the Court finds respondent’s claims to be made too late. Since the Court in Califor*456nia Bankers Assn. held that a bank, in complying with the requirement that it keep copies of the checks written by its customers, “neither searches nor seizes records in which the depositor has a Fourth Amendment right/' id., at 54, there is nothing new in today’s holding that respondent has no protected Fourth Amendment interest in such records. A fortiori, he does not have standing to contest the Government’s subpoena to the bank. Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165 (1969).
I wash my hands of today’s extended redundancy by the Court. Because the recordkeeping requirements of the Act order the seizure of customers’ bank records without a warrant and probable cause, I believe the Act is unconstitutional and that respondent has standing to raise that claim. Since the Act is unconstitutional, the Government cannot rely on records kept pursuant to it in prosecuting bank customers. The Government relied on such records in this case and, because of that, I would affirm the Court of Appeals’ reversal of respondent's conviction. I respectfully dissent.