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Supreme Court· 1/9/1973

Couch v. United States

Citations

  • 409 U.S. 322
  • 93 S. Ct. 611
  • 34 L. Ed. 2d 548
  • 1973 U.S. LEXIS 23
  • 31 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 477

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

  • holding that the petitioner lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in bank statements, payroll records, and reports of sales shared with an accountant and subsequently sought by IRS summons in connection with a criminal tax investigation
  • stating that the privilege against self-incrimination adheres basically to the person and not to the potentially incriminating information, and that the privilege applies to the possessor and not the owner of the information
  • refusing to recognize an accountant-client privilege in the context of tax returns and related criminal investigations
  • refusing to recognize an accountant-client privilege in the context of tax returns and related criminal investigations
  • rejecting taxpayer’s claim of accountant-client privilege in response to IRS summons issued to her accountant because no such privilege exists under federal law
  • “The Constitution explicitly prohibits compelling an accused to bear witness ‘against himself’; it necessarily does not proscribe incriminating statements elicited from another.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Powell, Burger, Brennan, Stewart, White, Blackmun, Rehnquist, Douglas, Marshall

Read full opinion on CourtListener

Cited by

602 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Cites

40 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

Other cases named Couch v. United States

20 other CourtListener records share this case name.

Sourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).

This is legal information, not legal advice. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always verify current law with official sources and consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for advice on your specific situation.