Court Opinion

ID: 9475767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:37:14.068865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:54.760855
License: Public Domain

BECKER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The government concedes in this case that, while it may compel an accused to reveal identifying physical characteristics, it may not force him to “disclose any knowledge he might have,” United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 222, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 1930, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967); to reveal his “consciousness of the facts [or] the operations of his mind in expressing it,” Rigney v. Hendrick, 355 F.2d 710, 713 (3d Cir.1965) cert. denied, 384 U.S. 975, 86 S.Ct. 1868, 16 L.Ed.2d 685 (1966) quoting 8 Wigmore, Evidence § 2265 at 375 (3d ed. 1940); or otherwise to “reveal mental processes.” Brief for Appellee at 7. In my view, however, the subpoena which the government seeks to enforce in this case compels the defendant to reveal his thoughts. It therefore should not be enforced.
The government in its brief invites us to distinguish between the witness’s thoughts themselves — a desire for which the government disclaims — and the product of that thought. The government contends that only the former is protected and that even if backward slanted handwriting takes thought to produce, only the results of that thought will be disclosed by the handwriting sample the government seeks. Neither the majority nor I, however, accepts this distinction. The Supreme Court has instructed us that acts and other conduct aside from speech itself may be protected by the Fifth Amendment when they take the form of testimony, i.e., when they communicate the witness’s thoughts. For instance, when the mere existence of a given document, or a witness’s possession of it, is unknown and potentially incriminating, a subpoena demanding the document’s production violates the witness’s Fifth Amendment right. United States v. Doe, 465 U.S. 605, 612-13, 104 S.Ct. 1237, 1242, 79 L.Ed.2d 552 (1984); Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 410, 96 S.Ct. 1569, 1580, 48 L.Ed.2d 39 (1976). Similarly, forcing a witness to take dictation compels him to communicate his thoughts about how to spell. United States v. Campbell, 732 F.2d 1017, 1021-22 (1st Cir.1984). As demonstrated by these decisions, the Fifth Amendment does not distinguish between the compelled disclosure of a thought itself and conduct which reveals the thought. So here, compelling a witness to write with a backward slant compels him to communicate to the government his thoughts about how to write with an abnormal backward slant.
The government correctly observes that it may compel a defendant to reveal his normal handwriting, which the Supreme Court has held is an “identifying physical characteristic.” Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 267, 87 S.Ct. 1951, 1953, 18 L.Ed.2d 1178 (1967). But normal handwriting is not a part of the body. If it is a physical — as opposed to a mental — characteristic, it is so because we write as we do by habit, without thinking about it. See 8 Wigmore on Evidence § 2265 at 316 (McNaughton Rev. ed. 1961) (handwriting is an “involuntary muscular habit pattern”); Inbau, Self-Incrimination: What An Accused Person Can Be Compelled To Do 46-47 (1950) (“[s]pecimen of handwriting ... [reveals] physical, habit-formed peculiarities”). Because we do not think about handwriting when we produce it, it does not reveal our thoughts. As the First Circuit observed per Judge Aldrich in United States v. Campbell, 732 F.2d at 1022, handwriting is “demandable” only because it reveals “pure physical habit or characteristics” as distinguished from “intellectual process.” “Basic penmanship, of course, is learned, but to say that the ultimate handwriting is an intellectual process of learning, as distinguished from physical form is simply not so.” Id. at 1021.
In my view, the alteration of one’s normal handwriting style — as opposed to its replication — cannot be accomplished without thinking about it, and what one thinks *1029when one alters one’s handwriting is revealed in the sample one produces. The government’s affidavit in support of the enforcement of the instant subpoena makes this clear. The government attorney explains in that affidavit, Supplemental Appendix of Appellee at 3, that the handwriting the government seeks to identify was “prepared slowly and deliberately and in a backward slant.” Id. (emphasis added) By compelling the witness to reproduce this handwriting, the government is forcing the witness to reproduce and reveal the deliberations which — if the defendant is guilty — went into his production of the samples the government is seeking to identify.
That the same view of backward slanted handwriting is an intellectual, as distinguished from a habitual or physical effort, is also suggested by the uncontradicted affidavit submitted on behalf of the witness by Charles Hamilton, a noted handwriting expert.1 Hamilton characterizes slanted handwriting as a “deliberate aberration[].” Appendix 91. One matter one would have to deliberate about, I note, is how to put a backward slant on bilaterally symmetric letters — such as lower case l’s and capital and lower case O’s.2 The handwriting sample that is the fruit of that thought is hardly habit. Backslanted writing is therefore not purely a physical characteristic, and the Fifth Amendment therefore precludes the government from compelling the witness to produce it.3
I do not contend that writing with an abnormal backward slant deprives the writing of all the “habits” or “mechanical elements” present in a person’s normal handwriting. Hamilton’s affidavit explains:
[T]he loops on the l’s and k’s and d’s on the /’s and p’s remain essentially the same; the dots over the i’s do not change position with regard to the i stem; the distance between letters, words and lines is almost identical. In fact, the original rhythm of the script remains unchanged. It is merely the slant that is altered____
Appendix 90-91. The fact that the mechanical elements in the backward slant remain the same as in the normal handwriting, however, reveals that the difference between the two samples is the product of conscious thought. While the government is entitled to the habitual part, the government already has that from the normal handwriting sample. The government now seeks only the result of the thought component.
Furthermore, Hamilton’s affidavit suggests that the evidence which the government seeks here is unnecessary. Because the mechanical portions remain the same, Hamilton explains, “it is my opinion that a skilled handwriting analyst has no need of any specifically fabricated backslanted exemplars to compare with a suspect script.” Appendix 91. If the government desires the backslanted exemplar because it pro*1030vides additional probative evidence in that it communicates the witness’s thoughts, that desire is thwarted by the Fifth Amendment, as we have noted. Alternatively, the government may desire a backslanted sample to show the grand or petit jury a superficial and prejudicial similarity between evidence in the record and the witness’s handwriting. Even assuming that the government may use the evidence in this way, the government’s need to do so hardly presents a compelling reason to expand the government’s privilege to coerce handwriting evidence.
I acknowledge that this is not a clear case, and that the majority’s opinion is not without force. The business of judging is line drawing, and in this context it is not clear just where the line should be drawn. But I am satisfied, for the reasons I have set forth, that the order in question crosses the line drawn by the Fifth Amendment and requires a defendant to communicate to the government, hence to incriminate himself. I respectfully dissent.4

. Although the report of the FBI handwriting examiner may be read to assert the need for the evidence sought here, see Supplemental Appendix at 9, his statement is conclusory. No reasoned explanation or rebuttal of Hamilton's affidavit is contained in the FBI examiner’s statement or has been offered in any other part of the record.

. A bilaterally symmetric letter is one whose left and right halves are mirror images of each another.

. The witness has also characterized the subpoena as compelling him to reveal his "normal” backward slant, so that it forces him to tell the grand or petit jury whether he indeed has a "normal” backward slant. The majority has rejected this attack not because the government may force the witness to disclose whether he has a "normal” backward slant but simply because the majority does not believe that the subpoena demands that the witness use his "normal” — or any other particular — backward slant. I agree with the majority that the subpoena does not seek information about the witness’s "normal” backward slant. I add, however, that if the majority is wrong about what the subpoena requests, and if the government did seek information about that witness’s normal backward slant, enforcement of that demand would unquestionably violate the Fifth Amendment. The government clearly could not put the witness on the stand and ask him whether he has a “normal” backward slant. If the witness is correct about what the subpoena seeks, then it has the same effect as asking the witness that question.

. I do not believe that I have engaged in fact-finding in declaring that the act of writing with a backward slant (when one normally does not do so) involves thought. If, however, more careful factfinding is necessary, I would remand for evidence on that point.