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Timestamp: 2019-11-14 21:48:16
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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2518', '§ 3731', '§ 2516', '§ 2515', '§ 2516', '§ 2518', '§ 2518', '§ 2516', '§ 2516', '§ 2516', '§ 2518', '§ 2518']

UNITED STATES V. GIORDANO, 416 U. S. 505 - Volume 416 - 1974 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 416 > UNITED STATES V. GIORDANO, 416 U. S. 505 (1974) > Full Text
(b) Since Congress intended to condition the use of intercept procedures upon the judgment of a senior Justice Department official that the situation is one of those warranting their use, thus precluding resort to wiretapping in various situations where investigative personnel would otherwise seek intercept authority from the court and the court would very likely authorize its use, it is evident that the provision for pre-application approval was intended to play a central role in the statutory scheme and that suppression must follow when it is shown that this statutory requirement has been ignored. Pp. 416 U. S. 528-529.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in Parts I, II, and III of which all Members joined, and in Part IV of which DOUGLAS, BRENNAN, STEWART, and MARSHALL, JJ., joined. DOUGLAS, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which BRENNAN, STEWART, and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 416 U. S. 580. POWELL, J., filed an opinion concurring in Parts I, II, and III of the Court's opinion and dissenting from Part IV, in which BURGER, C.J., and BLACKMUN and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined, post, p. 416 U. S. 548.
approving each application had been misidentified in the applications and intercept orders, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2518(1)(a) and (4)(d), United States v. Focarile, 340 F.Supp. 1033, 1060 (Md.1972). On the Government's pretrial appeal under 18 U.S.C. § 3731, the Court of Appeals affirmed on the different ground that the authorization of the October 16 wiretap application by the Attorney General's Executive Assistant violated § 2516(1) of the statute and struck at "the very heart" of Title III, thereby requiring suppression of the wiretap and derivative evidence under §§ 2515 and 2518(10)(a)(i) and (ii). [Footnote 2] 469 F.2d 522, 531 (CA4 1972). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict with decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [Footnote 3]
The purpose of the legislation, which was passed in 1968, was effectively to prohibit, on the pain of criminal and civil penalties, [Footnote 6] all interceptions of oral and wire communications except those specifically provided for in the Act, most notably those interceptions permitted to law enforcement officers when authorized by court order in connection with the investigation of the serious crimes listed in § 2516. Judicial wiretap orders must be preceded by applications containing prescribed information, § 2518(1). The judge must make certain findings before authorizing interceptions, including the existence of probable cause, § 2518(3). The orders themselves
S. 1495 was not enacted, but its provision limiting those who could approve applications for court orders survived, and was included in almost identical form in later legislative proposals, including the bill that became Title III of the Act now before us. [Footnote 7] In the course of
Hearings on Anti-Crime Program before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 1379 (1967). [Footnote 8]
S.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 96-97 (1968). This report is particularly significant in that it not only recognizes that the authority to apply for court orders is to be narrowly confined, but also declares that it is to be limited to those responsive to the political process, a category to which the Executive Assistant to the Attorney General obviously does not belong. [Footnote 9]
The Senate passed H.R. 5037, with the amendments tracking the provisions of S. 917, on May 23, 1968, as the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Act of 1968, 114 Cong.Rec. 14798 and 14889. During the proceedings leading to the passage of the bill, emphasis was again placed on § 2516. That the Attorney General had the exclusive authority to approve or provide for the approval of wiretap applications was reiterated, and it was made clear that, as the bill was drafted, no United States Attorney would have or could be given the authority to apply for an intercept order without the advance approval of a senior officer in the Department. [Footnote 10]
The Government insists that, because § 2516(2) provides for a wider dispersal of authority among state officers to approve wiretap applications and leaves the matter of delegation up to state law, [Footnote 11] it is inappropriate
to confine the authority so narrowly on the federal level. But it is apparent that Congress desired to centralize and limit this authority where it was feasible to do so, a desire easily implemented in the federal establishment by confining the authority to approve wiretap applications to the Attorney General or a designated Assistant Attorney General. To us, it appears wholly at odds with the scheme and history of the Act to construe § 2516(1) to permit the Attorney General to delegate his authority at will, whether it be to his Executive Assistant or to any officer in the Department other than an Assistant Attorney General. [Footnote 12]
The Court of Appeals held that the communications the Government desired to offer in evidence had been "unlawfully intercepted" within the meaning of paragraph (i), because the October application had been approved by the Executive Assistant to the Attorney General, rather than by the Attorney General himself or a designated Assistant Attorney General. [Footnote 14] We have already determined that delegation to the Executive Assistant was indeed contrary to the statute; but the Government contends that approval by the wrong official is a statutory violation only and that paragraph (i) must be construed to reach constitutional, but not statutory, violations. [Footnote 15] The argument is a straightforward one based on the structure of § 2518(10)(a). On the one hand, the unlawful interceptions referred to in paragraph
The position gains some support from the fact that predecessor bills specified a fourth ground for suppression -- the lack of probable cause -- which was omitted in subsequent bills, apparently on the ground that it was not needed because official interceptions without probable cause would be unlawful within the meaning of paragraph (i). [Footnote 16] Arguably, the inference is that, since
[For concurring opinion of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, see post, p. 416 U. S. 580.]
With respect to the wiretap extension, neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals addressed the Government's contention that communications intercepted under the extension were not derivatively tainted by the improper authorization defect in the original wiretap order, and neither court made any finding on this contention. The District Court simply found the wiretap extension order invalid on a different ground applicable both to the extension and to the original order. Specifically, the court concluded that the original wiretap order was unlawful because the application for it misidentified the approving officer and therefore failed to comply strictly with the provisions of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2518(1)(a) and (4)(d). The misidentification problem occurred in the application for the original wiretap order and in the application for the wiretap extension. The District Court held the extension order invalid on that basis alone, and ordered the evidence obtained pursuant thereto suppressed for that reason. [Footnote 2/3] The Court of
is obtained from an independent and lawful source. See, e.g., Anderson v. United States, 344 F.2d 792 (CA10 1965). The obvious and well established corollary is that the inclusion in an affidavit of indisputably tainted allegations does not necessarily render the resulting warrant invalid. The ultimate inquiry on a motion to suppress evidence seized pursuant to a warrant is not whether the underlying affidavit contained allegations based on illegally obtained evidence, but whether, putting aside all tainted allegations, the independent and lawful information stated in the affidavit suffices to show probable cause. James v. United States, 135 U.S.App.D.C. 314, 315, 418 F.2d 1150, 1151 (1969); United States v. Sterling, 369 F.2d 799, 802 (CA3 1966); United States v. Tarrant, 460 F.2d 701, 703-704 (CA5 1972); United States v. Koonce, 485 F.2d 374, 379 (CA8 1973); Nowell v. Cupp, 427 F.2d 36, 38 (CA9 1970); Chin Kay v. United States, 311 F.2d 317, 321 (CA9 1962). [Footnote 2/5] Judge
S.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 96. Thus, although the validity of a wiretap order depends on the satisfaction of certain statutory conditions in addition to the constitutional requirement of probable cause, the principle developed in 416 U. S. The question is not whether the application for that order relied in part on communications intercepted under the invalid original order but whether, putting aside that tainted evidence, the independent and lawful information stated in the supporting affidavit suffices to show both probable cause and satisfaction of the various additional requirements of Title III. [Footnote 2/7] United States v.
The detailed information lawfully obtained through surveillance and undercover work was aptly summarized in � 77 of the affidavit supporting the extension order:
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