75. Can the subpoena be enforced?

The admissibility of a defendant's confession or incriminating admission involves analysis under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. The Fifth Amendment provides, in pertinent part, that «[n]o person. .. shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.» This gives defendants rights against testimonial self-incrimination. The government violates the Fifth Amendment when it seeks to compel an individual to testify to information that can be used to prosecute the individual for a crime or which provides a link in the chain of evidence needed to prosecute.

In order to successfully assert the privilege against self-incrimination, a witness must demonstrate that the information sought by the government is: (i) compelled; (ii) incriminating; and (iii) testimonial. Although the Supreme Court has yet to establish a bright-line rule for determining when a witness' statement is testimonial, the Court has held that a statement is testimonial when it relates to an assertion of fact. The Fifth Amendment does not protect the contents of business records, which are voluntarily prepared documents and therefore not compelled.

Furthermore, under the «collective entity doctrine,» a corporation has no Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The right to resist compelled self-incrimination is a personal privilege, which corporations do not have. This is true regardless of whether a document produced incriminates the company or its records custodian. Thus, a custodian who produces records on behalf of a corporation may not resist a subpoena for corporate records on Fifth Amendment grounds.

Witnesses compelled by subpoena to appear before a grand jury are entitled to receive immunity in exchange for their testimony. The grant of immunity impairs the witness's right to invoke the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination as a legal basis for refusing to testify.

C is correct. In this question's fact pattern, the grand jury has issued a subpoena for emails and internal documents, which are indisputably business documents. As explained above, the Fifth Amendment does not protect the contents of business records because they are not compelled statements. Furthermore, the corporation is objecting to the subpoena under the Fifth Amendment as a corporation and not an individual. Thus, the subpoena will be enforced because a corporation may not invoke the Fifth Amendment.

A is incorrect. Transactional immunity, colloquially known as «blanket» or «total» immunity, completely protects a witness from future prosecution for crimes related to his or her testimony. Although it is an option available through the Fifth Amendment, it is used to encourage testimony from a witness, and not a privilege a witness would assert to avoid testifying on grounds of self-incrimination. In this case, the corporation (a non-human entity) may not properly assert a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, which means the issue of transactional immunity is irrelevant.

B is incorrect. Use and derivative use immunity prevents the prosecution only from using the witness's own testimony or any evidence derived from the testimony against the witness. Like transaction immunity, it is used to encourage testimony, and not a privilege a witness would assert to avoid testifying on grounds of self-incrimination. Here, a corporation (rather than an individual) is improperly asserting a Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid producing emails and documents. Thus, use and derivative use immunity is not applicable and irrelevant to the facts here.

D is incorrect. Although this answer is a correct statement of law, it is inapplicable here. The act of producing documents does not involve testimonial self-incrimination. Even if the documents contain incriminating information, it is not a violation of the Fifth Amendment to compel the production of documents. Answers that are legally or factually true often look appealing but are not always the correct answer. Even though the Fifth Amendment does not apply to the compelled production of documents, in this case, the party is a corporation, and the Fifth Amendment does not apply to corporations at all.