In
Fisher, the Supreme Court concluded 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 (emphasis added). Fifth Amendment rights cannot be infringed unless the governmental compulsion is directed at the holder of the right; “the Fifth Amendment protects against ‘compelled
self -incrimination, not [the disclosure of] private information.’ ”
Id. at 401, 96 S.Ct. at 1576 (emphasis added) (quoting
United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 233 n. 7, 95 S.Ct. 2160, 2167 n. 7, 45 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975)). There can be no violation of one's Fifth Amendment right not to testify against oneself where the records are in the hands of a third party; hence, one cannot complain on this ground about a subpoena directed to third parties to produce records. Similarly, in
Miller the Court held that a depositor had no protected Fourth Amendment interest in bank records obtained by means of an allegedly defective subpoena.
See Miller, 425 U.S. at 440, 96 S.Ct. at 1622. The bank records are not the depositor's private papers and, having given the information to the bank, the depositor has no legitimate expectation of continued privacy. Because no constitutionally protected interest was found in
Fisher and
Miller, the Court concluded in each case that the third-party subpoena could not be attacked.