United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1 (1973)

The right to feel secure from unreasonable governmental searches and seizures is a fundamental constitutional protection founded on the Fourth Amendment. The question in United States v. Dionisio was whether Fourth Amendment protection extends to security of an individual’s voice. The Supreme Court deliberated on the need to protect private citizens against governmental mandates to produce voice samples in an investigation. The Court held that the voice is not included under the Fourth Amendment and that the order to produce a voice sample is not a significant seizure of an individual’s voice or a violation of the reasonable expectation of privacy.
A grand jury convened in an attempt to investigate federal gambling crimes that had become an issue of governmental concern. The investigation produced multiple recordings of conversations containing evidence pertinent to the grand jury. In an attempt at voice identifiation with respect to the recordings, the grand jury subpoenaed roughly 20 people to submit voice samples. The respondent, Mr. Dionisio, was among the 20 individuals required to take part in the investigation.
Each participant was instructed to look over transcripts of the recordings and then report to the state’s attorney’s office for submission of a voice sample. They were all advised of their legal rights as well as their classification as possible defendants in the grand jury investigation. Mr. Dionisio refused to comply on the grounds that it violated his Fourth Amendment right of protection from unreasonable governmental seizures as well as his Fifth Amendment right to silence. When his arguments went before the district court, both constitutional assertions were rejected. He was ordered to comply with the grand jury’s subpoena and to submit to the voice testing. Dionisio refused the court’s mandate, and he was found in civil contempt. He was confined to police custody until either he submitted his voice sample to the state’s attorney or the grand jury was dissolved.
After a reversal by the appellate court on the grounds that the subpoena did in fact violate the respondent’s Fourth Amendment rights because of a lack of probable cause, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari and reviewed the case. It reasoned that there was no Fifth Amendment violation because a voice sample is evidence that is physical in nature, much like other biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or handwriting. In this case, the voice samples were meant only to identify the voices on the recording as physical evidence. For the Fifth Amendment to apply to this case, the intentions for ordering the voice samples would have to involve testimonial or communicative purposes. In other words, what the investigation sought to do was no different from comparing the respondent’s face to a photograph in order to determine his identity. The Court decided that the respondent’s Fifth Amendment right to silence was not violated by the grand jury’s order.
Concerning the Fourth Amendment assertion, the Supreme Court separated the respondent’s argument into two parts. The first issue was whether it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable seizures to require the respondent to physically appear before the grand jury. The Court quickly rejected this issue. Long ago, the courts deemed it to be in society’s best interest to require an individual’s contribution of evidence when it was requested by any legal fact-finding body. Second, Dionisio contended that the recording of his voice would be a Fourth Amendment violation of his expectation of privacy. The Court ruled that a seizure of Dionisio’s voice is, likewise, not protected under the Fourth Amendment’s privacy clause. A person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding his voice. A person’s voice is produced in public on a daily basis for the benefit of everyone who can hear it. It is not reasonable for an individual who speaks in public to expect others not to recognize or familiarize themselves with his voice. Simply because a person wishes to keep his voice private does not mean that his expectation is reasonable if he exposes it in public. Likewise, it is not reasonable for the respondent to expect his voice to remain private from the grand jury if, in the past, he has publicly produced it, without restraint, for the benefit of all to hear.
The Supreme Court concluded that there was no constitutional violation of the respondent’s rights. The assertion that the Fifth Amendment right to silence would be violated was flawed. Since the request of the respondent’s voice was made for evidentiary rather than testimonial purposes, the Fifth Amendment did not apply. The Court also decided that the Fourth Amendment claim was erroneous. Since the respondent could not reasonably expect his voice to remain private if it had been publicly used in the past, he could not expect it to remain private from the court.