''Hale v. Henkel'', 201 U.S. 43 (1906), was a major

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

case in which the Court established the power of a federal grand jury engaged in an investigation into corporate

malfeasance Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance are types of failure to discharge public obligations existing by common law, custom, or statute. The Carta de Logu caused Eleanor of Arborea to be remembered as one of the first lawmakers to set up t ...

to require the corporation in question to surrender its records.

Background

Edwin F. Hale, the petitioner, was the treasurer of MacAndrews and Forbes. Founded in 1850, MacAndrews and Forbes was one of six companies that were under investigation for

price fixing Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given ...

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

, in violation of the

Sherman Act The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce and consequently prohibits unfair monopolies. It was passed by Congress and is named for ...

. In 1906, US government prosecutors served a

grand jury A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...

subpoena A subpoena (; also subpœna, supenna or subpena) or witness summons is a writ issued by a government agency, most often a court, to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of ...

on Hale that demanded him to testify and turn over corporate documents. Hale appeared before the jury but refused to reply to questions or to produce documents. On his company's behalf, he invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege and was held in

contempt In colloquial usage, contempt usually refers to either the act of despising, or having a general lack of respect for something. This set of emotions generally produces maladaptive behaviour. Other authors define contempt as a negative emotio ...

. Hale then hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit, which ultimately came before the Supreme Court. Hale's argument was that a grand jury cannot require persons representing corporations to testify or demand them to produce documents unless the charges that are being investigated are first explained.

Decision

In a majority opinion written by

Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

Henry B. Brown, the Court rejected Hale's argument by maintaining that a grand jury can examine witnesses and demand documentary evidence in connection with a probe into possible crimes, even if it did not identify the scope of its investigation. The Court then rejected Hale's privilege claim by ruling that the

self-incrimination In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of making a statement that exposes oneself to an accusation of criminal liability or prosecution. Self-incrimination can occur either directly or indirectly: directly, by means of interrogation where ...

privilege provided to citizens by the Fifth Amendment did not apply to corporations. In short, the Court held that corporate employees cannot assert the privilege against self-incrimination on behalf of their employer. The Fifth Amendment guarantee "protects individual civil liberties, not economic business interests." The principle that "corporations and other collective entities are treated differently from individuals" under the Fifth Amendment is called the collective entity rule. The defendant of record in the case was William Henkel, US Marshal.

Quotes

"There is a clear distinction between an individual and a corporation, and the latter, being a creature of the State, has not the constitutional right to refuse to submit its books and papers for an examination at the suit of the State." "The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His power to contract is unlimited. He owes no duty to the State or to his neighbors to divulge his business, or to open his doors to an investigation, so far as it may tend to criminate ichim. He owes no such duty to the State, since he receives nothing therefrom beyond the protection of his life and property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent to the organization of the State, and can only be taken from him by due process of law, and in accordance with the Constitution. Among his rights are a refusal to incriminate himself and the immunity of himself and his property from arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the public so long as he does not trespass upon their rights."

Aftermath

The Court's subsequent ruling in ''Wilson v. United States'' (1911) built upon ''Hale v. Henkel'' by prohibiting corporate officers from invoking their own personal Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to justify a failure to turn over corporate documents. Such a use of the Fifth Amendment privilege, according to the Court, would inhibit the state's visitatorial rights over corporations. Later Supreme Court decisions applied the principle established in ''Hale v. Henkel'' to unions ('' United States v. White'' (1944)), partnerships ('' Bellis v. United States'' (1974)), and sole proprietorships ('' United States v. Doe'' (1984)). The cases have reflected the Court's consistent view that the Fifth Amendment privilege should apply to only individual human beings, not artificial entities. On the other hand, the ruling in ''

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ''Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission'', 558 U.S. 310 (2010), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court regarding Campaign fin ...

'' (2010) granted corporations an unfettered right of political free speech, and '' Burwell v. Hobby Lobby'' (2014) recognized corporations' religious liberties. One observer has described these two most recent rulings as "underscoring a deep rift on the Roberts court about the permissible (or desirable) extent of corporate personhood under the

Bill of Rights A bill of rights, sometimes called a declaration of rights or a charter of rights, is a list of the most important rights to the citizens of a country. The purpose is to protect those rights against infringement from public officials and pri ...

References

External links