Moyer v. Commonwealth

531 S.E.2d 580, 33 Va. App. 8, 2000 Va. App. LEXIS 557
CourtCourt of Appeals of Virginia
DecidedJuly 25, 2000
Docket2959972
StatusPublished
Cited by89 cases

This text of 531 S.E.2d 580 (Moyer v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Moyer v. Commonwealth, 531 S.E.2d 580, 33 Va. App. 8, 2000 Va. App. LEXIS 557 (Va. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinions

BENTON, Judge,

with whom COLEMAN, J., joins, dissenting.

Because I conclude that Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886), bars the seizure and use of Moyer’s diaries, I would hold that the trial judge’s ruling permitting the use of those diaries against Moyer at trial violated Moyer’s rights under the Fifth Amendment. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

In relevant part, the Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” In Boyd, the United States Supreme Court held unconstitutional, under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, a subpoena duces tecum ordering Boyd to produce an invoice which established his guilt for nonpayment of a duty tax. The Court explained that it was “unable to perceive that the seizure of a man’s private books and papers to be used in evidence against him is substantially different from compelling him to be a witness against himself.” Id. at 633, 6 S.Ct. at 534. Thus, the Court held “that a compulsory production of the private books and papers of the [accused] ... is compelling him to be a witness against himself, within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, and is the equivalent of a search and seizure — and an unreasonable search and seizure — within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 634-35, 6 S.Ct. at 534-35. Not even a warrant supported by probable cause could mask the “ ‘unreasonable’ character of such seizures” and legitimize the use of those seized' documents at trial. Id. at 633, 6 S.Ct. at 534.

Following this landmark decision, the Court has refined the scope of Boyd’s Fifth Amendment holding. In Couch v. [38]*38United States, 409 U.S. 322, 324, 93 S.Ct. 611, 614, 34 L.Ed.2d 548 (1973), the Court decided the “question ... whether the taxpayer may invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination to prevent the production of her business and tax records in the possession of her accountant.” The Court held that when an individual surrenders his or her business records to the possession of a third party, and the government subpoenas the third party to produce the records, the individual has no expectation of privacy in the records and the Fifth Amendment does not bar their production. See id. at 329-30, 93 S.Ct. at 616-17. Significantly, the Court noted that Boyd concerned an accused who possessed his own private papers and “did not ... address or contemplate the divergence of ownership and possession.” Id. at 330, 93 S.Ct. at 616.

Later, in Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 96 S.Ct. 1569, 48 L.Ed.2d 39 (1976), the Court “h[eld] that compliance with a summons directing [a] taxpayer to produce the [taxpayer’s] accountant’s documents ... involve[d] no incriminating testimony within the protection of the Fifth Amendment.” Id. at 414, 96 S.Ct. at 1582. The Court clearly recognized the continuing validity of Boyd when it stated, “[w]hether the Fifth Amendment would shield the taxpayer from producing his own tax records in his possession is a question not involved here; for the papers demanded here are not his ‘private papers,’ see Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. at 634-35 [6 S.Ct. at 534-35].” Fisher, 425 U.S. at 414, 96 S.Ct. at 1582; see also Shapiro v. United States, 335 U.S. 1, 16-18, 68 S.Ct. 1375, 1383-84, 92 L.Ed. 1787 (1948) (holding that records that are required by statute to be kept cannot be sheltered by the invocation of the Fifth Amendment).

As in Couch, the taxpayer in Fisher did not possess the documents — a third party, the taxpayer’s attorney, did. Thus, the Court’s “holding is that compelled production of documents from an attorney does not implicate whatever Fifth Amendment privilege the taxpayer might have enjoyed from being compelled to produce them himself.” Fisher, 425 U.S. at 402, 96 S.Ct. at 1576. Furthermore, the documents that [39]*39were subpoenaed in Fisher were documents prepared by the taxpayer’s accountant, not the taxpayer. Accordingly, the Court said, “[w]e do hold that compliance with a summons directing the taxpayer to produce the accountant’s documents involved in these cases would involve no incriminating testimony within the protection of the Fifth Amendment.” 425 U.S. at 414, 96 S.Ct. at 1582 (emphasis added). Stating that “[p]urely evidentiary (but ‘non testimonial’) materials, as well as contraband and fruits and instrumentalities of crime, may now be searched for and seized under proper circumstances,” Fisher, 425 U.S. at 407, 96 S.Ct. at 1579, the Court nonetheless noted, however, that the question is open under the Fifth Amendment “ ‘whether there are items of evidential value whose very nature precludes them from being the object of a reasonable search and seizure.’ ” Id. at 407 n. 9, 96 S.Ct. at 1579 n. 9.

After its decision in Fisher, the Court held “that the search of an individual’s office for business records, their seizure, and subsequent introduction into evidence do[es] not offend the Fifth Amendment’s proscription.” Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S. 463, 477, 96 S.Ct. 2737, 2747, 49 L.Ed.2d 627 (1976). In so holding, the Court specifically noted “that permitting the introduction into evidence of a person’s business records seized during an otherwise lawful search would [not] offend or undermine any of the policies undergirding the privilege.” Id. at 475-76, 96 S.Ct. at 2746. Significantly, however, the Court “recognize[d], of course, that the Fifth Amendment protects privacy to some extent.” Id. at 477, 96 S.Ct. at 2747. Indeed, the Court noted that the Fifth Amendment promotes the following societal values:

“The privilege against self-incrimination ... reflects many of our fundamental values and most noble aspirations: our unwillingness to subject those suspected of crime to the cruel trilemma of self-accusation, perjury or contempt; our preference for an accusatorial rather than an inquisitorial system of criminal justice; our fear that self-incriminating statements will be elicited by inhumane treatment and abuses; our sense of fair play which dictates ‘a fair state-[40]*40individual balance by requiring the government to leave the individual alone until good cause is shown for disturbing him and by requiring the government in its contest with the individual to shoulder the entire load’ ...; our respect for the inviolability of the human personality and of the right of each individual ‘to a private enclave where he may lead a private life’ ...; our distrust of self-deprecatory statements; and our realization that the privilege, while sometimes ‘a shelter to the guilty,’ is often ‘a protection to the innocent.’ ”

Id. at 476 n. 8, 96 S.Ct. at 2746 n. 8 (emphasis added). The Court again distinguished Boyd by noting that Boyd concerned “private papers” and did not “compel suppression of [the accused’s] business records.” Id. at 471-72, 96 S.Ct. at 2744. Thus, Andresen implicitly leaves open the question

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Bluebook (online)
531 S.E.2d 580, 33 Va. App. 8, 2000 Va. App. LEXIS 557, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moyer-v-commonwealth-vactapp-2000.