# United States v. Miller > Supreme Court of the United States · April 21, 1976 · 425 U.S. 435 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426377 ## Case - **Full name:** United States v. Miller - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** April 21, 1976 - **Citations:** 425 U.S. 435; 37 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 1261; 96 S. Ct. 1619; 48 L. Ed. 2d 71; 1976 U.S. LEXIS 148 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Marshall - **Judges:** Powell, Burger, Stewart, White, Blackmun, Rehnquist, Stevens, Brennan, Marshall - **Cited by:** 1,026 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by Commonwealth v. DeJohn, 486 Pa. 32 (1979). - Negative treatments: 1 - Distinguished by: 7 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426377 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding government-compelled disclosure of “a depositor’s private [bank] records” was not a Fourth Amendment search because “the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the obtaining of information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the… - holding that a Fourth Amendment search does not occur when the Government obtains from banks records including checks, deposit slips, and other information conveyed by bank customers to their banks because this information is “voluntarily conveyed to the banks and exposed to t… - explaining that the Fourth Amendment allows prosecutors to use “information revealed to a third party and conveyed by him to Government authorities, even if the information is revealed on the assumption that it will be used only for a limited purpose and the confidence placed … - holding that checks and deposit slips were business records of bank, voluntarily conveyed to the bank and exposed to its employees in the ordinary course of business, and therefore, defendant had no legitimate fourth amendment expectation of privacy in such documents ## Opinion text Mr. Justice Marshall, dissenting. In California Bankers Assn. v. Shultz, 416 U. S. 21 (1974), the Court upheld the constitutionality of the recordkeeping requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act. 12 U. S. C. § 1829b (d). I dissented, finding the required maintenance of bank customers’ records to be a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and unlawful in the absence of a warrant and probable cause. While the Court in California Bankers Assn. did not then purport to decide whether a customer could later challenge the bank’s delivery of his records to the Government pursuant to subpoena, I warned: “[I]t is ironic that although the majority deems the bank customers’ Fourth Amendment claims premature, it also intimates that once the bank has made copies of a customer’s checks, the customer no longer has standing to invoke his Fourth Amendment rights when a demand is made on the bank by the Government for the records. ... By accepting the Government’s bifurcated approach to the recordkeeping requirement and the acquisition of the records, the majority engages in a hollow charade whereby Fourth Amendment claims are to be labeled premature until such time as they can be deemed too late.” 416 U. S., at 97 . Today, not surprisingly, the Court finds respondent’s claims to be made too late. Since the Court in Califor *456 nia Bankers Assn. held that a bank, in complying with the requirement that it keep copies of the checks written by its customers, “neither searches nor seizes records in which the depositor has a Fourth Amendment right/' id., at 54 , there is nothing new in today’s holding that respondent has no protected Fourth Amendment interest in such records. A fortiori, he does not have standing to contest the Government’s subpoena to the bank. Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165 (1969). I wash my hands of today’s extended redundancy by the Court. Because the recordkeeping requirements of the Act order the seizure of customers’ bank records without a warrant and probable cause, I believe the Act is unconstitutional and that respondent has standing to raise that claim. Since the Act is unconstitutional, the Government cannot rely on records kept pursuant to it in prosecuting bank customers. The Government relied on such records in this case and, because of that, I would affirm the Court of Appeals’ reversal of respondent's conviction. I respectfully dissent. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9426377. Public record. Not legal advice.