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these accounts were due from the agents, still this would not avail the plaintiffs. The premiums were the considertion for the insurance contracts; they were the returns from the local business. Charging the premiums to the local agents did not withdraw the credits accruing to the corporations in the business transacted within the State from its taxing power.

It is also insisted that the assessments must be adjudged invalid upon the ground that they were shown to be grossly excessive and to have been the result of mere guesswork; and, further, that the assessors disregarded the reports made by the plaintiffs, and that their applications to be heard were refused because a test case was pending. Whether, with respect to these contentions, any Federal question can be said to have been raised in the state court is open to serious doubt. But it does not appear that the constitutional rights of the plaintiffs have been violated. It would be going too far to say that the assessments were nullities, or that the plaintiffs had been deprived of their property without due process of law. People ex rel. Brooklyn City Railroad Co. v. New York State Board of Tax Commissioners, 199 U. S., pp. 51, 52. The assessments were in fact made by the officers charged with that duty under the statute; if excessive, there was opportunity for review and correction. The plaintiffs have not been held bound by the assessment by reason of finality in the action of the assessors. See Central of Georgia Railway Co. v. Wright, 207 U. S. 127, p. 139. They had right of recourse to the courts of the State. If they are compelled to pay more than the amounts admitted by the stipulation, it is because they did not sue in time. They have procured a suitable reduction of the assessment for the year 1908; and a similar result could have been reached for the years 1906 and 1907, had action been taken within the period prescribed. It was competent for the legislature to fix a reasonable time within which actions for reductions

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should be instituted, and there was no violation of the Federal Constitution in adjudging the rights of the plaintiffs accordingly. Kentucky Union Co. v. Kentucky, 219 U. S., pp. 156, 157; Terry v. Anderson, 95 U. S. 628. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana is affirmed.

Judgment affirmed.

WILSON v. UNITED STATES.

SAME v. SAME.

SAME v. SAME.

ERROR TO, AND APPEALS FROM, THE CIRCUIT COURT OF

THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK.

Nos. 759, 760, 788. Argued March 2, 3, 1911.—Decided (April 15, 1911.

Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, followed to effect that a witness properly subpoenaed cannot refuse to answer questions propounded by the grand jury on the ground that there is no cause or specific charge pending.

The ad testificandum clause is not essential to the validity of a subpœna duces tecum, and the production of papers by one having them under his control may be enforced independently of his testimony. Where the subpoena duces tecum contains the usual ad testificandum clause it is not necessary to have the person producing the papers sworn as a witness. The papers may be proved by others. The right of one responding to a subpœna duces tecum to show why he need not produce does not depend on the ad testificandum clause, but is incidental to the requirement to produce.

Corporate existence implies amenability to legal powers, and a subpœna duces tecum may be directed to a corporation.

A corporation is under a duty to produce records, books and papers in its possession when they may be properly required in the administration of justice.

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A corporation is not relieved from responding to a subpœna duces tecum or from producing the documents required by reason of the provisions of §§ 877 and 829, Rev. Stat., or those of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.

A subpoena duces tecum, which is suitably specific and properly limited in its scope, and calls for the production of documents which, as against their lawful owner to whom the writ is directed, the party procuring its issuance is entitled to have produced, does not violate the unreasonable search and seizure provisions of the Fourth Amendment, and the constitutional privilege against testifying against himself cannot be raised for his personal benefit by an officer of the corporation having the documents in his possession.

A lawful command to a corporation is in effect a command to its officers, who may be punished for contempt for disobedience of its

terms.

An officer of a corporation is protected by the self-incrimination provisions of the Fifth Amendment against the compulsory production of his private books and papers, but this privilege does not extend to books of the corporation in his possession. An officer of a corporation cannot refuse to produce documents of a corporation on the ground that they would incriminate him simply because he himself wrote or signed them, and this even if indictments are pending against him.

Physical custody of incriminating documents does not protect the custodian against their compulsory production. The privilege which exists as to private papers cannot be maintained.

Under the visitatorial power of the State, and the authority of Congress over corporate activities within the domain subject to Congress, a corporation must submit its books and papers whenever properly required so to do and cannot resist on the ground of self-incrimination, even if the inquiry may be to detect and prevent violations of law. Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 74.

An officer of a corporation cannot withhold its books to save it, or if he is implicated in its violation of law, to protect himself, from disclosures, although he may decline to utter on the witness stand any self-incriminating word.

An officer cannot withhold from a grand jury corporate documents in his possession because the inquiry was directed against the corporation itself.

Notwithstanding English views as to the extent of protection against self-incrimination the duties of corporations and officers thereof are to be determined by our laws.

221 U. S. Argument for Plaintiff in Error and Appellant.

THE facts, which involve the validity of a subpoena duces tecum issued to a corporation, and the right of an officer thereof to refuse to produce the documents required by such subpoena on the ground that they tended to incriminate him, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. John B. Stanchfield, with whom Mr. Louis S. Levy and Mr. William M. Parke were on the brief, for plaintiff in error and appellant:

The disclosure of the contents of the letter press copy book, produced by appellant before the grand jury, would tend to incriminate plaintiff in error; the contents of the letter press copy book would form a link in the chain of evidence exposing him to indictment and to conviction on the two indictments previously found against him in the same court. In re Chapman, 153 Fed. Rep. 371; In re Hale, 139 Fed. Rep. 496; S. C., aff'd 201 U. S. 439; Fort v. Buchanan, 113 Fed. Rep. 156.

The privilege of a witness against producing books and papers under a subpoena duces tecum when the production thereof would tend to incriminate him, is even more fully protected than his privilege of refusing to make answer orally under an ordinary subpoena, when his oral answer would tend to incriminate him; because the former privilege is protected by both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, while the latter is protected by the Fifth Amendment only. Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616; United States v. Collins, 146 Fed. Rep. 555; United States v. Armour, 142 Fed. Rep. 808.

An officer of a corporation who actually holds the physical possession, custody and control of books or papers of the corporation which he is required by a subpœna duces tecum to produce, is entitled to the same protection against exposing the contents thereof which would tend to incriminate him, as if the books and papers were absolutely his own. In re Hale, 139 Fed. Rep. 496; S. C.,

Argument for Plaintiff in Error and Appellant. 221 U. S.

aff'd, 201 U. S. 43; Ex parte Chapman, 153 Fed. Rep. 371.

The principles above set forth have long been upheld by the courts of England. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments merely continued the right which was guaranteed by the common law, a right which has always been jealously guarded when properly claimed. See King v. Dr. Purnell, 1 W. Blackstone, 37; Green v. Granatelli, 7 State Trials (N. S.), 979.

The rights guaranteed to every natural person by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments are substantial, not merely formal and technical, and cannot be defeated by any fictional distinction by which the single and indivisable natural person is deemed to act or to be proceeded against in a representative capacity, and not in an individual capacity.

An officer of a corporation who is in possession of a book of the corporation containing a record made under his direction of his own acts and statements and tending to incriminate him, cannot be compelled in a criminal proceeding against himself to produce and permit the inspection of such books (either directly or by being forced to turn the book over to some other officer of the corporation) by means of a subpoena duces tecum addressed to the corporation directing the production of the book in question.

A subpoena duces tecum is a possessory writ. It searches all books and papers in the possession of the witness at the time of the service of the subpoena and in the eye of the law seizes such as are specified in the subpoena and are then in the possession of the witness. Bank v. Hilliard, 5 Cowen (N. Y.), 153, 158; Nelson v. United States, 201 U. S. 92, 115, 116; Hall v. Young, 37 N. H. 134.

The subpoena duces tecum addressed to the corporation only was unauthorized and void. Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43; Wertheim v. Continental Trust Co., 15 Fed. Rep.

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