Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-12-03104/USCOURTS-caDC-12-03104-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Eric Scurry
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 3, 2015 Decided April 8, 2016

No. 12-3104

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

ERIC SCURRY, ALSO KNOWN AS E,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with 12-3105, 12-3109, 13-3055, 13-3068

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:10-cr-00310-RCL-4)

(No. 1:10-cr-00310-RCL-7)

(No. 1:10-cr-00310-RCL-1)

(No. 1:10-cr-00310-RCL-2)

(No. 1:10-cr-00310-RCL-3)

Jonathan S. Zucker, appointed by the court, argued the

cause for appellants Robert Savoy, et al. Dennis M. Hart,

appointed by the court, argued the cause for appellant Eric

Scurry. With them on the joint brief were Pleasant S. Brodnax

III, Howard B. Katzoff, and Mark Diamond, all appointed by the

court.

USCA Case #12-3104 Document #1607799 Filed: 04/08/2016 Page 1 of 27
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Daniel J. Lenerz, Attorney, U.S. Attorney’s Office, argued

the cause for appellee. On the brief were Vincent H. Cohen Jr.,

Acting U.S. Attorney, and Elizabeth Trosman, David B.

Goodhand, and Arvind K. Lal, Assistant U.S. Attorneys. 

Elizabeth H. Danello, Assistant U.S. Attorney, entered an

appearance.

Before: ROGERS and PILLARD, Circuit Judges, and

WILLIAMS, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

ROGERS, Circuit Judge: The principal question presented in

this appeal is whether Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control

and Safe Streets Act of 1968 mandates suppression of evidence

derived from a wiretap where information expressly required by

the statute was omitted from the court order authorizing the

wiretap. Appellants contend that the district court erred in

denying their motions to suppress, relying on our subsequent

decision in United States v. Glover, 736 F.3d 509 (D.C. Cir.

2013). In Glover, 736 F.3d at 513–14, the court reiterated the

distinction drawn by the Supreme Court between two of the

grounds for suppression of wiretap evidence under 18

U.S.C. § 2515. To determine whether an “unlawfully

intercepted” communication merits suppression, id.

§ 2518(10)(a)(i), a court engages in “a broad inquiry into the

government’s intercept procedures to determine whether the

government’s actions transgressed the ‘core concerns’” of Title

III. Glover, 736 F.3d at 513. On the other hand, a mechanical

test applies when a wiretap authorization order is “insufficient

on its face,” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(ii), and suppression is

mandatory. Glover, 736 F.3d at 513–14. So, for example, in

Glover, the court held suppression was mandatory under 18

U.S.C. §§ 2515 and 2518(10)(a)(ii) where the Title III

authorization order was facially invalid because it exceeded the

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limits of the district court’s jurisdiction set forth in the statute,

id. § 2518(3). Glover, 736 F.3d at 514–15. We hold that a

wiretap order is “insufficient on its face,” 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(10)(a)(ii), where it fails to identify the Justice

Department official who approved the underlying application,

as required by Title III, id. § 2518(4)(d), accordingly reverse the

denial of the motions to suppress evidence from wiretaps on the

phones of appellants Terrance Hudson and Jerome Johnson, and

remand. Otherwise we affirm, concluding appellants’ other

contentions lack merit.

 

I.

In July 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”)

began an investigation into narcotics trafficking in and around

a group of multi-unit apartment buildings, “the Second Court,”

in the 4200 block of 4th Street in southeast Washington, D.C. 

Over the course of its investigation, the FBI identified a

narcotics trafficking organization involved in distributing

cocaine base (i.e., crack cocaine) in the Second Court. The FBI,

relying on information from two cooperating witnesses,

concluded Eric Scurry was a Second Court crack dealer. 

On April 2, 2010, the FBI submitted an application and

proposed order, which was signed by the district court, for a 30-

day wiretap on Scurry’s cell phone, an order later extended for

another 30-day period. Based on evidence obtained from

Scurry’s tapped calls, the FBI on June 11, 2010, applied for and

received court authorization to tap two cell phones associated

with Terrance Hudson, whom investigators had identified as part

of the same narcotics-trafficking conspiracy as Scurry. 

Hudson’s phone calls, in turn, suggested that Robert Savoy was

one of his cocaine suppliers, and on July 22, 2010, the FBI

obtained a wiretap court order for two cell phones associated

with Savoy. Those wiretaps indicated that Savoy also supplied

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crack and powder cocaine to another suspected narcotics dealer,

James Brown. The Savoy wiretaps additionally indicated that

Jerome Johnson supplied Savoy with large quantities of powder

cocaine, and on September 10, 2010, the FBI sought and

obtained a wiretap court order for Johnson’s cell phone. 

Appellants were indicted for various drug-trafficking

offenses. After the district court denied their motions to

suppress the wiretap evidence against them, United States v.

Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d 101 (D.D.C. 2012), and Savoy’s motion

for reconsideration, appellants entered conditional guilty pleas

pursuant to FED.R.CRIM. P. 11(a)(2). On appeal, they contend,

relying on Glover, 736 F.3d 509, that Title III mandates

suppression of evidence collected or derived from the wiretaps

on Hudson and Johnson’s cell phones because, as the district

court found, Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d at 114, 120, the court orders

authorizing those wiretaps were facially insufficient, see 18

U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(ii). They also contend that the district

court erred in denying the motions to suppress evidence derived

from the wiretaps on Scurry and Savoy’s phones. “In evaluating

appellants’ objections to the district court’s denial of . . .

motions to suppress, we review the district court’s legal

conclusions de novo and its factual findings for clear error.” 

United States v. Eiland, 738 F.3d 338, 347 (D.C. Cir. 2013).

II.

Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act

of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-351, 82 Stat. 197, 211–25 (codified as

amended at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510 et seq.), sets forth a detailed

procedure for the interception of wire, oral, or electronic

communications, which is otherwise a felony, 18 U.S.C. § 2511;

cf. id. §§ 2512–2513, and subject to civil penalties, id. § 2520. 

The procedure appears in 18 U.S.C. § 2518 (2012). Under Title

III, a judge may authorize a wiretap by law enforcement officers

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provided the application for and the court order authorizing the

interception include certain specific information. Id. § 2518(1),

(4). 

The wiretap authorization process here entails four steps. 

First, the wiretap application must be pre-approved by one of

the statutorily identified high-level Justice Department officials,

specifically including the Attorney General, the Deputy

Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, any Assistant

Attorney General, or any acting Assistant Attorney General, as

well as certain Deputy Assistant Attorneys General specially

designated by the Attorney General. See id. § 2516(1). 

Second, the government must submit the application, under

oath or affirmation, to a judge of competent jurisdiction and

state the applicant’s authority to make such application. Id.

§ 2518(1). Title III specifies what information the application

must contain. Id. § 2518(1)(a)–(f). That information includes:

(1) the identity of the high-level Justice Department official who

approved the application (“the application identification

requirement”), id. § 2518(1)(a); (2) an explanation of the facts

and circumstances that the applying officer believes justify the

wiretap, id. § 2518(1)(b); and (3) a statement describing the

necessity of the wiretap to the government’s investigation, id.

§ 2518(1)(c). “The judge may require the applicant to furnish

additional testimony or documentary evidence in support of the

application.” Id. § 2518(2). 

Third, before issuing the ex parte wiretap order, as

requested or modified, a judge must make certain determinations

based on the facts submitted by the applicant, id. § 2518(3),

including that the wiretap is necessary to the investigation, id.

§ 2518(3)(c), and that there exists probable cause to believe that

the phone to be tapped is or will soon be used in connection with

particular enumerated criminal offenses, id. § 2518(3)(d). 

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Fourth, the judge issues an order approving the wiretap.

Title III limits the length of the interception period to that

“necessary to achieve” the wiretap’s objective, with an initial

maximum 30-day period subject to renewal upon submission of

a new application. Id. § 2518(5). Title III also requires that the

court order contain certain specified information. Id.

§ 2518(4)(a)–(e), (5). As relevant: The court order must specify

“the nature and location of the communications facilities” to be

wiretapped. Id. § 2518(4)(b). It must specify the identity of the

high-level Justice Department official who approved the wiretap

application (“the order identification requirement”). Id.

§ 2518(4)(d). And it must contain a provision mandating that

law enforcement minimize the interception of communications

that fall outside the scope of the wiretap order (“the

minimization requirement”). Id. § 2518(5). 

Title III includes its own exclusionary mandate. Section

2515 provides:

 Whenever any wire or oral communication has been

intercepted, no part of the contents of such

communication and no evidence derived therefrom

may be received in evidence in any trial, hearing, or

other proceeding in or before any court, grand jury,

department, officer, agency, regulatory body,

legislative committee, or other authority of the United

States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof if the

disclosure of that information would be in violation of

[Title III].

18 U.S.C. § 2515. A person seeking to enforce section 2515

must have Title III “standing,” see In re Evans, 452 F.2d 1239,

1244 (D.C. Cir. 1971), which Title III defines as “[a]ny

aggrieved person in any trial, hearing, or proceeding,” 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(10)(a), who was a target of the wiretap or a person party

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to a wiretap intercept, id. § 2510(11). A person with standing

may move to suppress wiretap evidence and its fruits on any of

three grounds: “(i) the communication was unlawfully

intercepted; (ii) the [wiretap] order . . . is insufficient on its face;

or (iii) the interception was not made in conformity with the

[wiretap] order . . . .” Id. § 2518(10)(a)(i)–(iii). 

A.

No party disputes that the court orders authorizing the

wiretaps on Hudson and Johnson’s cell phones fail to identify

the officials who pre-approved the underlying applications. The

orders specify a type of official authorized to pre-approve

wiretap applications, namely, a Deputy Assistant Attorney

General in the Criminal Division specially designated by the

Attorney General. See id. § 2516(1). But where that official’s

name should appear, there are only asterisks. The order

authorizing the Hudson wiretap reads: the “application [was]

authorized by ******, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the

Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice,

pursuant to the power delegated to that official by special

designation of the Attorney General.” The order authorizing the

Johnson wiretap states that the “application [was] authorized by

*, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division,

United States Department of Justice, pursuant to the power

delegated to that official by special designation of the Attorney

General.” There are five Deputy Assistant Attorneys General in

the Criminal Division.1

 The district court ruled that the Hudson

1 See U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Justice Mgmt. Div., 2012

Organization, Mission and Functions Manual, available at

https://www.justice.gov/archive/jmd/mps/2012/mission.htm (Criminal

Division Organizational Chart dated Oct. 4, 2010); U.S. Dep’t of

Justice, Justice Mgmt. Div., Organization, Mission and Functions

Manual, 2009, available at

https://www.justice.gov/archive/jmd/mps/2009omf/mission.htm

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and Johnson orders were facially insufficient for failing to

comply with the identification requirement in section

2518(4)(d), but concluded, prior to Glover, that the facial

insufficiency “constituted a technical defect that did not

undermine the purposes of the [wiretap] statute or prejudice”

Hudson or Johnson, and so denied their motions to suppress. 

Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d at 113–14, 120–21. 

1. To determine whether a wiretap order is facially

insufficient, a reviewing court must examine the four corners of

the order and establish whether, on its face, it contains all that

Title III requires it to contain. See United States v. Chavez, 416

U.S. 562, 573–74 (1974); United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S.

505, 525 n.14 (1974). If the order complies with the

requirements of Title III, it is “[]sufficient on its face”; if it does

not comply with those requirements, it is “insufficient on its

face.” See 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(ii). For example, a wiretap

order is facially sufficient when it names the Assistant Attorney

General as the official who authorized the wiretap application

even though extrinsic documents reveal that a different Justice

Department official — e.g., the Attorney General — authorized

the application. See Chavez, 416 U.S. at 573–74. For purposes

of section 2518(10)(a)(ii), then, it is enough that the official

named in the order had the power to pre-approve wiretap

applications. 

There can be little question that each of the Hudson and

Johnson orders is “insufficient on its face,” see 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(10)(a)(ii), because each fails to include information

expressly required by Title III. Section 2518(4) enumerates

certain categories of information that a wiretap order “shall

specify.” One is “the identity . . . of the person authorizing the

application.” Id. § 2518(4)(d) (emphasis added). The text is

(Criminal Division Organizational Chart dated Jan. 17, 2008).

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plain and unambiguous; every wiretap court order must identify

the individual high-level Justice Department official who, as

required by section 2516(1), authorized the underlying wiretap

application. This requirement may be met where the language

points unambiguously to a unique qualified officer holding a

position that only one individual can occupy at a time, but here

there is more than one Deputy Assistant Attorney General and

no individual Deputy is identified on the face of either the

Hudson or the Johnson wiretap orders. This would appear to

end this part of our inquiry. See Engine Mfrs. Ass’n v. S. Coast

Air Quality Mgmt. Dist., 541 U.S. 246, 252–54 (2004).

In resisting suppression, the government views the

interpretation of sub-sections 2518(4)(d) and (10)(a)(ii)

compelled by the text as adopting an overly formalistic

approach. It urges the court to hold that a court wiretap order is

not facially insufficient where essential information required by

Title III is missing from the order so long as other materials

submitted to the judge who issued the order supply the missing

detail. Here, the application for the Hudson wiretap states that

“Bruce C. Swartz, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the

Criminal Division, has authorized this Application” and includes

as an attachment a copy of Deputy Swartz’s signed letter

approving the application. Similarly, the Johnson application

includes as an attachment a signed letter of Kenneth A. Blanco,

whom the letter identifies as a Deputy Assistant Attorney

General in the Criminal Division, approving the application. 

But, as noted, Title III’s facial sufficiency inquiry is limited

to the four corners of the wiretap order. See Chavez, 416 U.S.

at 573–74; Giordano, 416 U.S. at 525 n.14. There is something

incongruous about an interpretation that would let extrinsic

documents transform an order that is “insufficient on its face”

into one that is sufficient “on its face.” See 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(10)(a)(ii). Further, the government’s interpretation

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would allow it, in every case, to satisfy Title III’s order

identification requirement, id. § 2518(4)(d), by satisfying its

application identification requirement, id. § 2518(1)(a),

effectively rendering section 2518(4)(d) superfluous. See

Duncan v. Walker, 533 U.S. 167, 174 (2001). Although

Congress has amended Title III since its enactment in 1968,

Congress has left unchanged the information required to be

contained in a wiretap court order. Compare 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(4)(a)–(e), with Title III, § 802, 82 Stat. at 219 (adding

section 2518(4)(a)–(e) to Title 18).

To the extent Title III’s two identification requirements are

functionally redundant, it is clear that “Congress could sensibly

have seen some practical value in the redundancy.” Gutierrez

de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 445 (1995) (Souter, J.,

dissenting); cf. Nat’l Ass’n of Clean Water Agencies v. EPA, 734

F.3d 1115, 1126 (D.C. Cir. 2013). The deliberations leading up

to the passage of Title III reveal deep unease over the risk to

privacy interests inherent in granting wiretapping authority to

law enforcement. With telecommunications technology — and

alongside it eavesdropping technology — evolving rapidly,

members of Congress feared that “if [Title III] is successful,

today’s narrowing enclave of individual privacy will shrink to

the vanishing point.” S. REP. NO. 90-1097, at 171 (1968)

(additional views of Sen. Hart). The President and the Attorney

General expressed serious misgivings about a wiretap statute,

with the Attorney General testifying that wiretaps posed a risk

to privacy “too great to permit their exploitation even by

Government agents acting in the name of law enforcement.” 

Anti-Crime Program: Hearings Before Subcomm. No. 5 of the

H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 90th Cong. 209 (1967). 

Congress sought, therefore, to limit the use of wiretaps —

to balance law enforcement and privacy interests — by

“impos[ing] important preconditions to obtaining any intercept

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authority at all.” Giordano, 416 U.S. at 515; see also Title III,

§ 801(a)–(d), 82 Stat. at 211–12. Among them was the

requirement that a high-level Justice Department official sign

off on each wiretap application. See 18 U.S.C. § 2516(1). 

Congress intended application pre-approval to “play a central

role” in the Title III process, Giordano, 416 U.S. at 528, and to

constitute “a critical precondition to any judicial order”

authorizing a wiretap, id. at 516. According to the Report of the

Senate Judiciary Committee, application pre-approval

centralizes . . . the formulation of law enforcement

policy on the use of electronic surveillance techniques. 

Centralization will avoid the possibility that divergent

practices might develop. Should abuses occur, the

lines of responsibility lead to an identifiable person. 

This provision in itself should go a long way toward

guaranteeing that no abuses will happen. 

S. REP. NO. 90-1097, at 97. 

The identification requirements buttress this core bulwark

against unwarranted intrusions into private conversations. As

the Supreme Court has observed, “[t]here is little question that

[the identification requirements] were intended to make clear

who bore the responsibility for approval of the submission of a

particular wiretap application.” Chavez, 416 U.S. at 571–72; see

also S.REP.NO. 90-1097, at 101, 103. This ex post check on the

misuse or overuse of wiretaps, in turn, also operates as an ex

ante constraint on executive branch conduct. Congress could

reasonably conclude that a high-level Justice Department

official, who is already prone to caution given the level of

responsibilities attendant to the high position, will tread even

more cautiously when reviewing proposed wiretap applications

if the official is individually identified as having approved the

application. Insisting on individual identification in both the

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application and the order accords with Congress’s intent “to

make doubly sure that the statutory [wiretap] authority be used

with restraint.” Giordano, 416 U.S. at 515.

Furthermore, in functional terms, Title III’s doubled

identification requirements are not redundant. Title III contains

evidence of Congress’s intent that the order — independent of

the application — be the operative document in the field. One

sign of this intent is that all the information contained in the

order is also contained in the application. Compare 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(1)(a)–(b) & (d), with id. § 2518(4)(a)–(e). That

complete overlap makes little sense if Congress expected the

order always to travel with the application. Another indicator

arises out of Title III’s criminal and civil penalties. Since its

enactment, Title III has exposed “any person” to personalcapacity civil liability, including punitive damages, and even

criminal prosecution for carrying out an unlawful wiretap. 18

U.S.C. §§ 2511(1)(a)–(b), 2511(4)–(5), 2520(a)–(c); see also

Title III, § 802, 82 Stat. at 213, 223. Good-faith reliance on a

court order — but not on a wiretap application — is a complete

defense to a criminal or civil action. 18 U.S.C. § 2520(d); see

also Title III, § 802, 82 Stat. at 223. Congress expected reliance

on the wiretap order in the field, where the risk of criminal and

civil exposure is at its height, and it designed Title III’s

immunity provision accordingly. Practice confirms what Title

III’s design suggests. After the authorizing judge signs the

wiretap order, the order — but not the application — goes to

those involved in conducting the surveillance. The Hudson and

Johnson orders, for example, state that the order, application,

affidavit in support of the application, proposed orders, and

interim reports be sealed, “except that copies of the orders, in

full or redacted form, may be served on the [FBI] and its

participating law enforcement agencies including the

Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and

the service providers as necessary to effectuate this order.” 

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Each identification requirement, then, has a distinct

audience in the Title III process. “Requiring identification of

the authorizing official in the application facilitates the court’s

ability to conclude that the application has been properly

approved under § 2516 . . . .” Chavez, 416 U.S. at 575. 

Including that identification in the wiretap order facilitates

additional oversight, this time by the parties executing the order. 

Congress did not want field agents or telecommunications

service providers to conduct or assist in conducting wiretaps

unless they — like the judge who authorized the wiretap —

could satisfy themselves of proper compliance with section

2516(1)’s application pre-approval requirement. Section

2518(4)(d)’s order identification requirement is how Congress

chose to furnish them evidence of compliance, thereby ensuring

that the evidence would be at once fairly reliable, because a

federal judge has vouched for its accuracy, and easily accessible,

because it is included in the operative field document. And by

tying immunity to good-faith reliance on a court order, see 18

U.S.C. § 2520(d), Congress created an incentive for field agents

and service providers to examine a wiretap order for

completeness, including the identity of the authorizing Justice

Department official. With pre-approval as a critical check on

the overuse or misuse of wiretapping authority, see Giordano,

416 U.S. at 516, 528, Congress designed Title III so that the

absence of evidence of pre-approval by an individual Justice

Department official at either of two stages would halt the

wiretap process.

The government also contends that the Hudson and Johnson

orders are facially sufficient because they identified the title of

the person or the general category of official who authorized the

underlying application. Alternatively, the government resorts to

grammatical niceties. Each order states that the government

sought the order “pursuant to an application authorized by . . .

[a] Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division

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. . . pursuant to the power delegated to that official by special

designation of the Attorney General” (emphasis added). In the

government’s view, the use of the demonstrative adjective “that”

before the noun “official” makes it reasonably believable that a

single, individual Deputy Assistant Attorney General authorized

the application. 

The same reasoning undercuts both of the government’s

arguments. Title III requires that the wiretap order provide the

“identity . . . of the person” who authorized the application. 18

U.S.C. § 2518(4)(d) (emphasis added). To specify a category of

official or a job title is usually not the same thing as specifying

the “identity” of a “person.” Nor does it fix responsibility for

approval of the wiretap application, see S.REP. NO. 90-1097, at

103, such that “[s]hould abuses occur, the lines of responsibility

[would] lead to an identifiable person,” id. at 97 (emphasis

added). The same problems infect reliance on the reference to

an unnamed Deputy Assistant Attorney General. As noted, five

officials in the Criminal Division hold that title. Indeed, other

documents show that two different Deputy Assistant Attorneys

General — Swartz and Blanco — authorized the Hudson and

Johnson wiretap applications. A third Deputy, John C. Keeney,

authorized the application for a wiretap on Savoy’s phone. That

there is more than one Deputy Assistant Attorney General

distinguishes the instant case from United States v. Traitz, 871

F.2d 368, 379 (3d Cir. 1989), where the failure to name the

Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, who had

pre-approved the application, did not render the order facially

insufficient; because at any given time, there is only one

Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, see 28

C.F.R. § 0.55 (referring to “the Assistant Attorney General,

Criminal Division”), identifying that person by title is the

functional equivalent of identifying the individual’s name. Not

so here. 

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Finally, the government contends that “[a]t worst, the

authorizing orders’ typographical errors rendered them

‘imperfect’ . . . but not facially insufficient.” Appellee’s Br.

26–27 (citing Glover, 736 F.3d at 515). The government is

correct that Glover, 736 F.3d at 515, left open the possibility that

a “technical defect” in a wiretap order might not rise to the level

of facial insufficiency, but rather would render the order

“imperfect.” But the omissions in the Hudson and Johnson

orders are not merely technical defects. The government failed

to include in the proposed orders information expressly required

by Title III. See 18 U.S.C. § 2518(4)(d). It is difficult to

conceive of that as a technical defect. By contrast, the technicaldefect cases the court cited in Glover, 736 F.3d at 515, did not

involve facially insufficient orders that omitted information

expressly required by Title III. See United States v. Moore, 41

F.3d 370, 372, 375–76 (8th Cir. 1994); Traitz, 871 F.2d at

378–79.

For these reasons, we agree with the district court that the

Hudson and Johnson orders are facially insufficient under 18

U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(ii). See Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d at 113–14,

120–21.

 . 

2. The question remains whether suppression pursuant to

section 2515 is the appropriate remedy here. “The issue does

not turn on the judicially fashioned exclusionary rule aimed at

deterring violations of Fourth Amendment rights, but upon the

provisions of Title III.” Giordano, 416 U.S. at 524. Title III

sets out three grounds for suppression, 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(10)(a)(i)–(iii), and the Supreme Court explained the

analytical distinctions between them in Chavez, 416 U.S. at

573–75, and Giordano, 416 U.S. at 524–27. A functional

inquiry determines whether a violation of Title III is such that

the contents of the wiretap must be suppressed as “unlawfully

intercepted.” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(i). Suppression is

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required only when the government fails to comply with “those

statutory requirements that directly and substantially implement

the congressional intention to limit the use of intercept

procedures to those situations clearly calling for the employment

of this extraordinary investigative device.” Giordano, 416 U.S.

at 527. Consequently, not every failure to comply with Title III

will warrant suppression under section 2518(10)(a)(i). For

example, under the “unlawfully intercepted” paragraph, the

failure to comply with section 2516(1)’s application preapproval requirement results in suppression, Giordano, 416 U.S.

at 524–29, but suppression does not necessarily result from the

misidentification of the authorizing Justice Department official

in the wiretap application and order, Chavez, 416 U.S. at

574–80.

The Supreme Court, however, pursued an altogether

different methodological tack in analyzing the scope of the

facial-insufficiency ground of section 2518(10)(a)(ii). As this

court recently explained, in Giordano and Chavez, 

the Court read paragraph (i) as requiring a broad

inquiry into the government’s intercept procedures to

determine whether the government’s actions

transgressed the “core concerns” of the [wiretap]

statute, whereas (ii) is a mechanical test; either the

warrant is facially sufficient or it is not. . . . 

Suppression is the mandatory remedy when evidence

is obtained pursuant to a facially insufficient warrant. 

There is no room for judicial discretion.

Glover, 736 F.3d at 513. In sum, once a reviewing court

determines that a wiretap order is facially insufficient, the only

appropriate remedy is suppression. Because the Hudson and

Johnson wiretap orders are facially insufficient, see supra Part

II.A.1, the contents of intercepts collected pursuant to those

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orders and “evidence derived therefrom” must be suppressed. 

18 U.S.C. §§ 2515, 2518(10)(a)(ii). 

The government objects that the omissions in the Hudson

and Johnson orders do not warrant suppression because the

wiretap orders satisfy the functional “core concerns” test for

suppression under the unlawfully intercepted ground of section

2518(10)(a)(i). That is, the record accompanying the wiretap

applications submitted to the district court shows that a Deputy

Assistant Attorney General in fact approved each of the

applications. The Hudson and Johnson wiretaps therefore were

not “unlawfully intercepted” within the meaning of section

2518(10)(a)(i). See Chavez, 416 U.S. at 574–80; cf. Giordano,

416 U.S. at 527–28. But that is irrelevant to the suppression

inquiry under the facial-insufficiency ground of section

2518(10)(a)(ii). Title III provides for suppression in any one of

three different circumstances, set forth in three separate

subparagraphs separated by the disjunctive conjunction “or.” 18

U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a). Suppression is required when the

conditions set forth in any of those three paragraphs are met. 

That one paragraph does not require suppression has no bearing

on the applicability of the other two. Cf. Loughrin v. United

States, 134 S. Ct. 2384, 2389–90 (2014). What the government

asks, in essence, is for the court to transform section 2518(10)(a)

from a statutory provision establishing a disjunctive test into one

establishing a conjunctive test. On the government’s

interpretation, a defendant would have to satisfy all three of its

paragraphs to prevail on a motion to suppress. This is not the

choice Congress made, and the government has pointed to

nothing that supports a contrary conclusion. 

The government’s reliance on out-of-circuit cases declining

to suppress wiretap evidence in circumstances like those here,

see Appellee’s Br. 20–22 n.11, is misplaced. In those cases,

courts have reasoned that section 2518(10)(a)(i)’s “core

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concerns” test can excuse orders that are facially insufficient

under section 2518(10)(a)(ii). See, e.g., Traitz, 871 F.2d at

379–80; United States v. Robertson, 504 F.2d 289, 291–92 (5th

Cir. 1974); United States v. Gray, 521 F.3d 514, 524–28 (6th

Cir. 2008); United States v. Callum, 410 F.3d 571, 574–76 (9th

Cir. 2005); United States v. Radcliff, 331 F.3d 1153, 1161–63

(10th Cir. 2003). This panel is bound by the rejection of this

approach in Glover, 736 F.3d at 513, where the court declined

to import the “core concerns” test into the facial-insufficiency

context. See Belbacha v. Bush, 520 F.3d 452, 457 (D.C. Cir.

2008); LaShawn A. v. Barry, 87 F.3d 1389, 1393 (D.C. Cir.

1996) (en banc). The Glover court’s reasoning is, in any event,

faithful to both Supreme Court precedent and the text of Title

III. 

For these reasons, we reverse the district court’s denial of

the motions to suppress the Hudson and Johnson wiretap

evidence. See Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d at 113–14, 120–21. It

remains for the district court on remand to determine the effect

of our reversal on appellants’ conditional pleas and what

evidence is “derived” from the Hudson and Johnson wiretaps. 

See 18 U.S.C. § 2515. We note, parenthetically, that a number

of cases cited by the government, Appellee’s Br. 20–22 n.11,

entail similar errors as here. The Justice Department can readily

reduce the likelihood that it repeats this kind of error going

forward. Cf. Chavez, 416 U.S. at 573 n.4. The United States

Attorneys’ Manual’s Criminal Resource Manual provides a

detailed overview of what information a Title III order must

contain. See DEP’T OF JUSTICE, U.S. ATTORNEYS’ MANUAL:

CRIMINAL RESOURCE MANUAL § 30 (2012), available at

https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-30-el

ectronic-surveillance-title-iii-orders. In fact, it includes every

requirement enumerated in section 2518(4) except the

requirement that the order identify the high-level Justice

Department official who pre-approved the underlying

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application. Id. A revision to the Criminal Resource Manual

appears in order. 

B.

Next, appellants contend that the district court erred by not

interpreting the word “facilities” in sub-sections 2518(1)(b)(ii)

and (4)(b) to require applications and orders for wiretaps on cell

phones to identify the cell towers that will transmit signals to

and from the tapped phone. We are not persuaded.

Title III requires that ordinary wiretap applications include

“a particular description of the nature and location of the

facilities from which or the place where the communication is

to be intercepted.” 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(b)(ii) (emphasis added). 

A wiretap order likewise must specify “the nature and location

of the communications facilities as to which, or the place where,

authority to intercept is granted.” Id. § 2518(4)(b) (emphasis

added). No party disputes that the wiretap applications and

orders here identified the individual cell phones that would be

subject to surveillance. Appellants maintain that the “location”

of the “facilities” to be tapped must be geographically fixed and

a cell phone, therefore, cannot constitute the “facilit[y]” to be

tapped, because unlike a land-line telephone it has no fixed

location. Instead, appellants contend that, in the cell phone

context, the “location” of the “facilities” to be tapped is the cell

tower — or, in reality, towers — through which the cell phone’s

signals are routed. 

Title III does not define what is meant by the “facilities”

targeted by the wiretap. But three considerations, based on the

structure, purpose, and legislative history of Title III, see N.Y.

State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers

Ins. Co., 514 U.S. 645, 655 (1995), persuade us that Congress

intended the word “facilities” in sub-sections 2518(1)(b)(ii) and

(4)(b) to encompass cell phones themselves. First, a contrary

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interpretation would yield an absurd result. No Title III

provision other than the “facilities” paragraphs — sub-sections

2518(1)(b)(ii) and (4)(b) — could be read to require that wiretap

applications and orders identify the target phone. So if the target

telephone is not a type of “facilit[y],” then wiretap applications

and orders would never have to identify the specific phone the

government intends to tap. Yet, Congress required applications

and orders to specify the “nature and location” of the “facilities”

to be tapped in order to “reflect[] the constitutional command of

particularization” enshrined in the Fourth Amendment. S.REP.

NO. 90-1097, at 101; see also id. at 102–03. The Fourth

Amendment requires that a warrant “particularly describ[e] the

place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” 

Generally, to satisfy the search component of the particularity

requirement, a warrant must enable the executing officer to

locate and identify the place to be searched and ensure — to a

reasonable probability — that the officer will not mistakenly

search the wrong place. United States v. Johnson, 437 F.3d 69,

73 (D.C. Cir. 2006). “In the wiretap context,” the Fourth

Amendment’s particularity requirement is “satisfied by

identification of the telephone line to be tapped and the

particular conversations to be seized.” United States v.

Donovan, 429 U.S. 413, 427 n.15 (1977). Surely a Title III

wiretap application or order could not satisfy the Fourth

Amendment’s particularity requirement if it failed to identify the

individual phone to be tapped. Second, the Senate Judiciary

Committee Report states that Congress understood telephones

to be a type of “facilit[y]”: “Subparagraph (b) [of section

2518(4)] requires the order to specify the phone or other

communication facilities from which or the place where the

authority to intercept is granted.” S. REP. NO. 90-1097, at

102–03 (emphasis added); see also id. at 101. Third, of the

many amendments to Title III since 1968, the parties point us to

none — and we are aware of none — that suggests Congress

intended Title III to treat wiretaps on cell phones differently

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from wiretaps on land-line phones. Quite the contrary. In the

Electronic Communications Privacy Act, Pub. L. No. 99-508,

§ 101(a)(1)(B), 100 Stat. 1848, 1848 (1986), Congress amended

the definition of “wire communication” in Title III to “make[]

clear that cellular communications — whether they are between

two cellular telephones or between a cellular telephone and a

‘land line’ telephone — are included in the definition of ‘wire

communications’ [sic] and are covered by [Title III].” S. REP.

NO. 99-541, at 11 (1986); see also H.R. REP. NO. 99-647, at 31,

35 (1986). 

Here, the information in the wiretap applications and orders

at issue is sufficient to identify the “nature and location” of the

targeted cell phones. Although Title III does not establish a

minimum quantum of information necessary to identify the

“nature and location” of a telephone targeted by a wiretap, the

particularity requirement under the Fourth Amendment provides

a useful guide to Congress’ intent. See S. REP. NO. 90-1097, at

101–03. Each application and order specified the telephone

number of the targeted cell phone, a serial number identifying

the physical device associated with the target phone number, the

identity of the service provider, and the name and address of the

subscriber. With all of that information in hand, there is no

basis to conclude an officer or service provider would find it

difficult to identify the target phone or tap the wrong phone. Cf.

Johnson, 437 F.3d at 73. Our sister circuits are in accord. See

United States v. Oliva, 705 F.3d 390, 400–01 (9th Cir. 2012);

United States v. Goodwin, 141 F.3d 394, 403 (2d Cir. 1997). 

Appellants’ strained readings of Title III’s definitions and case

law interpreting other statutes are unavailing. It would be

difficult to conclude from their arguments that Congress would

resort to minor grammatical distinctions and subtle statutory

alterations — with no accompanying explanation or comment —

in order to institute as dramatic a change as a cell-phone carve

out from Title III’s ordinary requirements. Because the

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applications and orders satisfied the facility-identification

requirements of sub-sections 2518(1)(b)(ii) and (4)(b), the court

need not address appellants’ suggestion that the government

ought to have complied with the more stringent requirements

Title III imposes on so-called roving wiretaps. See 18 U.S.C.

§ 2518(11).

C.

Finally, appellants’ challenges to the Scurry wiretaps are

unpersuasive. 

1. Appellants maintain that the application for the initial

Scurry wiretap did not establish probable cause to believe the

target phone was being or would be used to commit specified

drug offenses. See Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d at 108–09. This

challenge arises from the government’s efforts to keep current

on Scurry’s cell phone habits. FBI Special Agent Christopher

Fiorito had originally prepared an affidavit seeking a wiretap on

a phone whose number ended in 9231 (the “9231 phone”). 

Fiorito abandoned that wiretap request, however, after he

learned that Scurry had stopped using the 9231 phone. The

wiretap application that was authorized was for a phone whose

number ended in 7790 (the “target phone”). Appellants concede

that the Fiorito affidavit furnishes probable cause to justify a

wiretap on the 9231 phone, but object that the government failed

to demonstrate probable cause to believe Scurry was using or

would use the target phone to further his alleged narcoticstrafficking crimes. See 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(b), (3)(d). 

Title III imports the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause

standard: the authorizing court must “make a practical,

common-sense decision whether, given all the circumstances set

forth in the affidavit before it, including the ‘veracity’ and ‘basis

of knowledge’ of persons supplying hearsay information, there

is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will

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be found in a particular place.” Eiland, 738 F.3d at 347

(alterations omitted) (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213,

238 (1983)). A reviewing court gives deference to the

authorizing court’s probable cause determinations. Johnson,

437 F.3d at 71. 

The evidence proffered in the 56-page Fiorito affidavit

demonstrates that there was a “fair probability” that the target

phone was being and would be used to commit the specified

narcotics offenses. Scurry and one of the government’s

cooperating witnesses (“Witness 2”) had a months-long history

of coordinating drug transactions by phone, including the 9231

phone. In February 2010, after federal agents had been

investigating Scurry for several months, they learned from

Witness 2 that Scurry had acquired a new phone, which they

identified as the target phone. On March 11, Witness 2 received

five calls from the target phone. During one of those calls,

Scurry arranged to sell crack to Witness 2, a sale that took place

the next day through one of Scurry’s associates, acting at

Scurry’s behest. Around the same time Scurry began calling

Witness 2 on the target phone, he largely stopped using the 9231

phone. Fiorito attests that, based on his experience, drug

traffickers frequently switch phones to avoid police detection. 

Toll records revealed that the target phone was in contact with

75 phone numbers with which the 9231 phone had also been in

contact. Of those, several numbers belonged to known

associates of Scurry. According to Witness 2, another

cooperating witness (“Witness 1”), and law enforcement

surveillance, three of these associates were involved in selling

drugs with or in the same area as Scurry. Although Witness 2

has had some veracity problems, Fiorito swore that Witness 1

was reliable and had never provided false information over three

years of cooperating with the FBI. 

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Appellants hinge their challenge on a repeated error in the

Fiorito affidavit. Specifically, the affidavit on several occasions

incorrectly refers to the 9231 phone as the “target phone.” 

Presumably, those mix-ups are artifacts of Fiorito’s original

affidavit, which was for a wiretap on the 9231 phone. In

context, however, it is plain that the incorrect references to the

“target phone” in fact describe the 9231 phone, and there is no

reason to think these errors deceived the authorizing judge. The

Fiorito affidavit states that Scurry was using the 9231 phone —

and not the target phone — during the time period when it

mistakenly refers to the 9231 phone as the “target phone,” and

several erroneous mentions of the “target phone” have as their

clear referent an earlier mention of the 9231 phone. Nor is the

Fiorito affidavit defective merely because it relied on some

“boilerplate” language or a “cut and paste” from the earlier 9231

phone affidavit. See Appellants’ Br. 54. “Even if the affidavit

does contain some general language, applications are not to be

read in a piecemeal fashion.” Eiland, 738 F.3d at 347 (internal

quotation marks omitted). Taken as a whole, then, the Fiorito

affidavit satisfies Title III’s probable cause requirement. See 18

U.S.C. § 2518(1)(b), (3)(d).

2. Appellants maintain that the district court erred when it

determined that the Fiorito affidavit satisfied Title III’s necessity

requirement, id. § 2518(1)(c), (3)(c). See Savoy, 883

F. Supp. 2d at 109–10. Although intended to prevent overreliance on wiretapping authority, Title III’s necessity

requirement “was not designed to foreclose electronic

surveillance until every other imaginable method of

investigation has been unsuccessfully attempted.” United States

v. Carter, 449 F.3d 1287, 1293 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting United

States v. Williams, 580 F.2d 578, 588 (D.C. Cir. 1978)). “[T]he

government will meet its burden of demonstrating necessity if

it shows that other techniques are impractical under the

circumstances and that it would be unreasonable to require

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pursuit of those avenues of investigation.” Id. (internal

quotation marks omitted). In the conspiracy context, the

necessity requirement “is satisfied when ‘traditional

investigative techniques have proved inadequate to reveal the

operation’s full nature and scope.’” United States v. (Ernest)

Glover, 681 F.3d 411, 420 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting United

States v. Becton, 601 F.3d 588, 596 (D.C. Cir. 2010)). This

court reviews the authorizing judge’s Title III necessity

determination for abuse of discretion, although it does not grant

additional deference to the district court’s subsequent review. 

See id. at 419–20.

The Fiorito affidavit demonstrates that the authorizing judge

did not abuse his discretion when he found that the first Scurry

wiretap was necessary. Fiorito lists the investigative tools the

FBI had already deployed, including physical surveillance, the

use of confidential informants, analysis of pen-register and GPStracking data, and controlled narcotics purchases. But, he adds,

these tools had failed to disclose the full nature and scope of the

narcotics-trafficking enterprise operating in the Second Court. 

Physical surveillance, GPS tracking, and pen registers let the

FBI know that Scurry was in contact with other potential

suspects, but those tools told investigators little about the nature

of Scurry’s interactions. Confidential informants, for their part,

had limited access to co-conspirators. Fiorito also attests to the

insufficiency of investigative techniques short of a wiretap. A

number of techniques risked revealing the existence of the

investigation to its targets and putting government cooperators

in harm’s way: interviews with Scurry’s associates, a search of

one of Scurry’s stash houses, trash pulls, and arranging for a

cooperator to introduce Scurry to an undercover officer. 

Scurry’s anti-surveillance countermeasures had frustrated

attempts to use still other investigative techniques. Scurry took

evasive maneuvers to avoid physical surveillance, consummated

drug sales indoors or inside cars, and insulated himself from

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people he did not know, like undercover officers. To secure

useful grand jury testimony, the government would likely have

had to immunize the investigation’s targets, which would defeat

the purpose of securing their testimony. This court has

repeatedly upheld necessity determinations based on affidavits

similar to the Fiorito affidavit. See, e.g., Eiland, 738 F.3d at

348–49; (Ernest) Glover, 681 F.3d at 420; Carter, 449 F.3d at

1293–94; Becton, 601 F.3d at 596–97. 

Appellants’ counterarguments amount to little more than

second-guessing how the government ought to run its

investigations and prosecute drug crimes. They maintain that

the government could have searched Scurry’s known stash

house or prosecuted Scurry on the evidence of controlled

narcotics transactions alone. That assertion runs counter to the

law of this circuit on the scope of Title III’s necessity

requirement in the conspiracy context. See (Ernest) Glover, 681

F.3d at 420. Appellants also challenge the Fiorito affidavit on

the ground that it failed to mention an earlier, unsuccessful

prosecution of Scurry on drug charges. The fact of the earlier

prosecution, they contend, might have led the authorizing judge

to take a different view of whether the wiretap was necessary. 

Moreover, appellants suggest, it might have led the judge to

worry that a desire for retribution — rather than necessity — lay

behind the government’s wiretap application. Appellants never

raised this argument in the district court. See Scurry Mot. to

Suppress at 5–6 (Oct. 14, 2011); Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d at

109–10. Although our precedent is unclear as to the appropriate

standard of review in these circumstances, compare Eiland, 738

F.3d at 350, with United States v. Peyton, 745 F.3d 546, 551

(D.C. Cir. 2014), under any standard appellants’ challenge fails. 

If anything, the government’s loss in the first case — a

comparably simple case involving two counts of distribution —

underscores the need for additional investigative tools. As for 

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evidence suggesting retributive motivation or bias on the

government’s part, appellants point to none.

3. Appellants maintain that the agents executing the Scurry

wiretaps failed to comply with Title III’s minimization

requirement, 18 U.S.C. § 2518(5). Such compliance turns on

whether the government made “reasonable efforts to minimize

interceptions of non-pertinent communications.” Carter, 449

F.3d at 1295. In appellants’ view, the FBI listened to too many

non-pertinent calls for too long to have taken reasonable steps

to minimize such interceptions. As the district court held,

Savoy, 883 F. Supp. 2d at 110–11, this argument is foreclosed by

controlling precedent. See Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128,

139–41 (1978); Carter, 449 F.3d at 1295. More to the point, in

United States v. Cano-Flores, 796 F.3d 83, 87–88 (D.C. Cir.

2015), the court rejected the argument appellants advance. To

challenge the reasonableness of the government’s minimization

efforts, a party must present more than the raw number of nonpertinent intercepted calls and their durations.

Accordingly, we reverse the denial of the motions to

suppress the Hudson and Johnson wiretap evidence, remand the

case for further proceedings, and otherwise affirm.

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