United States v. Miller

• Decision Date: 21 April 1976
• Docket Number: No. 74-1179,74-1179
• Citation: 425 U.S. 435,48 L.Ed.2d 71,96 S.Ct. 1619
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Petitioner, v. Mitchell MILLER
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

48 L.Ed.2d 71

96 S.Ct. 1619

425 U.S. 435

UNITED STATES, Petitioner,

v Mitchell MILLER.

No. 74-1179.

Argued Jan. 12, 1976.

Decided April 21, 1976.

Syllabus

Respondent, who had been charged with various federal offenses, made a pretrial motion to suppress microfilms of checks, deposit slips, and other records relating to his accounts at two banks, which maintained the records pursuant to the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (Act). He contended that the subpoenas Duces tecum pursuant to which the material had been produced by the banks were defective and that the records had thus been illegally seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Following denial of his motion, respondent was tried and convicted. The Court of Appeals reversed, having concluded that the subpoenaed documents fell within a constitutionally protected zone of privacy. Held : Respondent possessed no Fourth Amendment interest in the bank records that could be vindicated by a challenge to the subpoenas, and the District Court therefore did not err in denying the motion to suppress. Pp. 440-446.

(a) The subpoenaed materials were business records of the banks, not respondent's private papers. Pp. 440-441.

(b) There is no legitimate "expectation of privacy" in the contents of the original checks and deposit slips, since the checks are not confidential communications but negotiable instruments to be used in commercial transactions, and all the documents obtained contain only information voluntarily conveyed to the banks and exposed to their employees in the ordinary course of business. The Fourth Amendment doe not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities. The Act's recordkeeping requirements do not alter these considerations so as to create a protectable Fourth Amendment interest of a bank depositor in the bank's records of his account. Pp. 441-443.

(c) Issuance of a subpoena to a third party does not violate a defendant's rights, even if a criminal prosecution is contemplated at the time the subpoena is issued. California Bankers Assn. v. Shultz, 416 U.S. 21, 53, 94 S.Ct. 1494, 1513, 39 L.Ed.2d 812, 835. Pp. 444-445.

(d) Aess to bank records under the Act is to be controlled by "existing legal process." That does not mean that greater judicial scrutiny, equivalent to that required for a search warrant, is necessary when a subpoena is used to obtain a depositor's bank records. Pp. 445-446.

500 F.2d 751, reversed and remanded.

Lawrence G. Wallace, Washington, D. C., for petitioner.

Denver Lee Rampey, Jr., Warner Robins, Ga., for respondent.

Mr. Justice Powell delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent was convicted of possessing an unregistered still, carrying on the business of a distiller without giving bond and with intent to defraud the Government of whiskey tax, possessing 175 gallons of whiskey upon which no taxes had been paid, and conspiring to defraud the United States of tax revenues. 26 U.S.C. §§ 5179, 5205, 5601 Et seq.; 18 U.S.C. § 371. Prior to trial respondent moved to suppress copies of checks and other bank records obtained by means of allegedly defective subpoenas Duces tecum served upon two banks at which he had accounts. The records had been maintained by the banks in compliance with the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 1114, 12 U.S.C. § 1829b(d).

The District Court overruled respondent's motion to suppress, and the evidence was admitted. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed on the ground that a depositor's Fourth Amendment rights are violated when bank records maintained pursuant to the Bank Secrecy Act are obtained by means of a defective subpoena. It held that any evidence so obtained must be suppressed. Since we find that respondent had no protectable Fourth Amendment interest in the subpoenaed documents, we reverse the decision below.

I

On December 18, 1972, in response to an informant's tip, a deputy sheriff from Houston County, Ga., stopped a van-type truck occupied by two of respondent's alleged co-conspirators. The truck contained distillery apparatus and raw material. On January 9, 1973, a fire broke out in a Kathleen, Ga., warehouse rented to respondent. During the blaze firemen and sheriff department officials discovered a 7,500-gallon-capacity distillery, 175 gallons of nontax-paid whiskey, and related paraphernalia.

Two weeks later agents from the Treasury Department's Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau presented grand jury subpoenas issued in blank by the clerk of the District Court, and completed by the United States Attorney's office, to the presidents of the Citizens & Southern National Bank of Warner Robins and the Bank of Byron, where respondent maintained accounts. The subpoenas required the two presidents to appear on January 24, 1973, and to produce

"all records of accounts, I. e., savings, checking, loan or otherwise, in the name of Mr. Mitch Miller (respondent), 3859 Mathis Street, Macon, Ga. and/or Mitch Miller Associates, 100 Executive Terrace, Warner Robins, Ga., from October, 1972, through the present date (January 22, 1973, in the case of the Bank of Byron, and January 23, 1973, in the case of the Citizens & Southern National Bank of Warner Robins)."

The banks did not advise respondent that the subpoenas had been served but ordered their employees to make the records available and to provide copies of any documents the agents desired. At the Bank of Byron, an agent was shown microfilm records of the relevant account and provided with copies of one deposit slip and one or two checks. At the Citizens & Southern National Bank microfilm records also were shown to the agent, and he was given copies of the records of respondent's account during the applicable period. These included all checks, deposit slips, two financial statements, and three monthly statements. The bank presidents were then told that it would not be necessary to appear in person before the grand jury.

The grand jury met on February 12, 1973, 19 days after the return date on the subpoenas. Respondent and four others were indicted. The overt acts alleged to have been committed in furtherance of the conspiracy included three financial transactions the rental by respondent of the van-type truck, the purchase by respondent of radio equipment, and the purchase by respondent of a quantity of sheet metal and metal pipe. The record does not indicate whether any of the bank records were in fact presented to the grand jury. They were used in the investigation and provided "one or two" investigatory leads. Copies of the checks also were introduced at trial to establish the overt acts described above.

In his motion to suppress, denied by the District Court, respondent contended that the bank documents were illegally seized. It was urged that the subpoenas were defective because they were issued by the United States Attorney rather than a court, no return was made to a court, and the subpoenas were returnable on a date when t grand jury was not in session. The Court of Appeals reversed. 500 F.2d 751 (1974). Citing the prohibition in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 622, 6 S.Ct. 524, 528, 29 L.Ed. 746, 748 (1886), against "compulsory production of a man's private papers to establish a criminal charge against him," the court held that the Government had improperly circumvented Boyd's protections of respondent's Fourth Amendment right against "unreasonable searches and seizures" by "first requiring a third party bank to copy all of its depositors' personal checks and then, with an improper invocation of legal process, calling upon the bank to allow inspection and reproduction of those copies." 500 F.2d, at 757. The court acknowledged that the recordkeeping requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act had been held to be constitutional on their face in California Bankers Assn. v. Shultz, 416 U.S. 21, 94 S.Ct. 1494, 39 L.Ed.2d 812 (1974), but noted that access to the records was to be controlled by "existing legal process." See Id., at 52, 94 S.Ct., at 1513, 39 L.Ed.2d, at 835. The subpoenas issued here were found not to constitute adequate "legal process." The fact that the bank officers cooperated voluntarily was found to be irrelevant, for "he whose rights are threatened by the improper disclosure here was a bank depositor, not a bank official." 500 F.2d, at 758.

The Government contends that the Court of Appeals erred in three respects: (i) in finding that respondent had the Fourth Amendment interest necessary to entitle him to challenge the validity of the subpoenas Duces tecum Through his motion to suppress; (ii) in holding that the subpoenas were defective; and (iii) in determining that suppression of the evidence obtained was the appropriate remedy if a constitutional violation did take place.

We find that there was no intrusion into any area in which respondent had a protected Fourth Amendment interest and that the District Court therefore correctly denied respondent's motion to suppress. Because we reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals on that ground alone, we do not reach the Government's latter two contentions.

II

In Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 301-302, 87 S.Ct. 408, 413, 17 L.Ed.2d 374, 382 (1966), the Court said that "no interest legitimately protected by the Fourth Amendment" is implicated by governmental investigative activities unless there is an intrusion into a zone of privacy, into "the security a man relies upon when he places himself or his property within a constitutionally protected area." The Court of Appeals, as noted above, assumed that respondent had the necessary Fourth Amendment interest, pointing to the language in Boyd v. United States, supra, 116 U.S., at 622, 6 S.Ct., at 528, 29 L.Ed., at 748, which describes that Amendment's protection against the "compulsory production of a man's private papers." ¹ We think that the Court of Appeals erred in finding the subpoenaed documents to...