Also known as: collective entity · juristic persons · legal persons
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An organization such as a corporation or partnership that lacks any Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Agents required to produce the entity's records cannot invoke the privilege to avoid personal incrimination.
Cascade Manufacturing receives a grand jury subpoena for internal financial ledgers. Its controller, Christopher Collins, is ordered to turn over the documents. Christopher asserts his personal Fifth Amendment right because the papers would incriminate him. The court rejects the claim because Cascade Manufacturing is a collective entity whose records must be produced regardless of the producing agent's individual exposure.
Cardinal Insurance, a partnership, is audited by the IRS. The revenue agent issues a summons for partnership tax returns and client files. Partner Cade Carpenter refuses production, claiming his Fifth Amendment privilege. The summons is enforced because Cardinal Insurance is a collective entity with no privilege of its own, so the partner must comply even if production harms him personally.
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No. Partnerships and corporations have no Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. An agent ordered to produce entity records cannot refuse on personal Fifth Amendment grounds even when production would incriminate the agent.
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Braswell v. United States held that agents of collective entities must produce records under subpoena even when doing so is personally incriminating. The decision rests on the entity's lack of any Fifth Amendment privilege.
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The rule covers both corporations and partnerships. Any collective entity lacks Fifth Amendment rights, so the producing agent receives no immunity from the act of production itself.
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