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The Arrival of Justice Gorsuch May Bring Opportunity to Reform the Collective Entity Doctrine

Recognizing a Fifth Amendment privilege for corporations — whether through wholesale abolition of the collective entity doctrine or by recognizing some limited exception for custodians of smaller corporations — would not foreclose meaningful white-collar prosecutions, but it would restore protection of the Fifth Amendment rights of individuals who are sacrificed under the current bright-line rule. Will Justice Gorsuch help in this endeavor?

27 minute read June 02, 2017 at 12:05 AM
By
Preston Burton, Bree Murphy and Leslie Meredith
The Arrival of Justice Gorsuch May Bring Opportunity to Reform the Collective Entity Doctrine

A little over 100 years ago, the Supreme Court declined to extend the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to corporations responding to grand jury subpoenas for documents, establishing what has been termed the “collective entity doctrine.”

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