A subpoena or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoenas:
- subpoena ad testificandum orders a person to testify before the ordering authority or face punishment. The subpoena can also request the testimony to be given by phone or in person.
- subpoena duces tecum orders a person or organization to bring physical evidence before the ordering authority or face punishment. This is often used for requests to mail copies of documents to requesting party or directly to court.
A subpoena duces tecum, or subpoena for production of evidence, is a court summons ordering the recipient to appear before the court and produce documents or other tangible evidence for use at a hearing or trial. In some jurisdictions, it can also be issued by legislative bodies such as county boards of supervisors.
Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, 542 U.S. 177 (2004), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a statute requiring suspects to disclose their names during a valid Terry stop does not violate the Fourth Amendment if the statute first requires reasonable suspicion of criminal involvement, and does not violate the Fifth Amendment if there is no allegation that their names could have caused an incrimination.
In the United States, the exclusionary rule is a legal rule, based on constitutional law, that prevents evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights from being used in a court of law. This may be considered an example of a prophylactic rule formulated by the judiciary in order to protect a constitutional right. The exclusionary rule may also, in some circumstances at least, be considered to follow directly from the constitutional language, such as the Fifth Amendment's command that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" and that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."
In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another [person] in a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof"..
Reporter's privilege in the United States, is a "reporter's protection under constitutional or statutory law, from being compelled to testify about confidential information or sources." It may be described in the US as the qualified (limited) First Amendment or statutory right many jurisdictions have given to journalists in protecting their confidential sources from discovery.
Swidler & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S. 399 (1998), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the death of an attorney's client does not terminate attorney–client privilege with respect to records of confidential communications between the attorney and the client.
Witness immunity from prosecution occurs when a prosecutor grants immunity to a witness in exchange for testimony or production of other evidence.
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution creates several constitutional rights, limiting governmental powers focusing on criminal procedures. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights.
In re Boucher, is a federal criminal case in Vermont, which was the first to directly address the question of whether investigators can compel a suspect to reveal their encryption passphrase or password, despite the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. A magistrate judge held that producing the passphrase would constitute self-incrimination. In its submission on appeal to the District Court, the Government stated that it does not seek the password for the encrypted hard drive, but only sought to force Boucher to produce the contents of his encrypted hard drive in an unencrypted format by opening the drive before the grand jury. A District Court judge agreed with the government, holding that, given Boucher's initial cooperation in showing some of the content of his computer to border agents, producing the complete contents would not constitute self-incrimination.
California v. Byers, 402 U.S. 424 (1971), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States decided that providing personal information at the scene of an accident does not infringe on one's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, in which the Court held that “a search and seizure [was] equivalent [to] a compulsory production of a man's private papers” and that the search was “an 'unreasonable search and seizure' within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”
Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757 (1966), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court clarified the application of the Fourth Amendment's protection against warrantless searches and the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination for searches that intrude into the human body. Until Schmerber, the Supreme Court had not yet clarified whether state police officers must procure a search warrant before taking blood samples from criminal suspects. Likewise, the Court had not yet clarified whether blood evidence taken against the wishes of a criminal suspect may be used against that suspect in the course of a criminal prosecution.
Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441 (1972), was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the issue of whether the government's grant of immunity from prosecution can compel a witness to testify over an assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. 370 (2010), is a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court considered the position of a suspect who understands their right to remain silent under Miranda v. Arizona and is aware that they have the right to remain silent, but does not explicitly invoke or waive the right.
In the law of the United States, the mere evidence rule was a historical doctrine that defined the scope of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24 (2002), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court determined that Kansas' Sexual Abuse Treatment Program (SATP) served a vital penological purpose and determined that allowing minimal incentives to take part in the SATP does not equal compelled self-incrimination as prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. There were three main points to the case that were used to determine the SATPs were constitutional as summarized by the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA). These included the distinct findings that, “[t]he SATP in Kansas is supported by the legitimate penological objective of rehabilitation”, that, “the fact that Kansas does not offer immunity or privilege in response to statements made by participants does not render the SATP invalid under the [fifth] amendment”, and that the, “consequences that follow for nonparticipation, do not, under the Kansas plan, combine to create compulsion, thereby infringing upon the participant’s [fifth] amendment right”. Due to the plurality of the case, no singular decision was held as a majority.
South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553 (1983), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that prosecutors may use a suspect's refusal to submit to a blood-alcohol test as evidence of guilt and that the introduction of such evidence at trial does not violate the suspect's Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination.
Hale v. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43 (1906), was a major United States Supreme Court case in which the Court established the power of a federal grand jury engaged in an investigation into corporate malfeasance to require the corporation in question to surrender its records.
Murphy v. Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, 378 U.S. 52 (1964), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the self-incrimination clause in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that a state cannot compel a witness to provide testimony that may be incriminating under other State/Federal laws, even if it granted immunity under its own laws. Decided on the same day as Malloy v. Hogan (1964), the Supreme Court reconsidered its previous rulings that the Federal Government could compel witness testimony that could be incriminating under a state's laws, and states could similarly compel testimony that would be incriminating under Federal law.
