12 U.S.C. § 3407
Section 3407 · Judicial subpena
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 15 court decisions — leading case Pleasant v. Lovell (1989)
Most recently applied in Flowers v. United States (March 2007)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
A Government authority may obtain financial records under section 3402(4) of this title pursuant to judicial subpena only if—
(1) such subpena is authorized by law and there is reason to believe that the records sought are relevant to a legitimate law enforcement inquiry;
(2) a copy of the subpena has been served upon the customer or mailed to his last known address on or before the date on which the subpena was served on the financial institution together with the following notice which shall state with reasonable specificity the nature of the law enforcement inquiry:
“Records or information concerning your transactions which are held by the financial institution named in the attached subpena are being sought by this (agency or department or authority) in accordance with the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 [12 U.S.C. 3401 et seq.] for the following purpose: If you desire that such records or information not be made available, you must:
“1. Fill out the accompanying motion paper and sworn statement or write one of your own, stating that you are the customer whose records are being requested by the Government and either giving the reasons you believe that the records are not relevant to the legitimate law enforcement inquiry stated in this notice or any other legal basis for objecting to the release of the records.
“2. File the motion and statement by mailing or delivering them to the clerk of the Court.
“3. Serve the Government authority requesting the records by mailing or delivering a copy of your motion and statement to .
“4. Be prepared to come to court and present your position in further detail.
“5. You do not need to have a lawyer, although you may wish to employ one to represent you and protect your rights.
If you do not follow the above procedures, upon the expiration of ten days from the date of service or fourteen days from the date of mailing of this notice, the records or information requested therein will be made available. These records may be transferred to other government authorities for legitimate law enforcement inquiries, in which event you will be notified after the transfer;” and
(3) ten days have expired from the date of service or fourteen days from the date of mailing of the notice to the customer and within such time period the customer has not filed a sworn statement and motion to quash in an appropriate court, or the customer challenge provisions of section 3410 of this title have been complied with.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
The Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978, referred to in par. (2), is title XI of Pub. L. 95–630, Nov. 10, 1978, 92 Stat. 3697, which is classified generally to this chapter (§3401 et seq.). For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see Short Title note set out under section 3401 of this title and Tables.