Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/308/321/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-12-16 07:08:15
Document Index: 28379135

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 605', '§ 605', '§ 605', '§ 1423', '§ 605', '§ 605', '§ 605', '§ 27', '§ 1', '§ 605', '§ 605', '§ 501']

WEISS V. UNITED STATES, 308 U. S. 321 (1939) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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WEISS V. UNITED STATES, 308 U. S. 321 (1939)
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applies to intrastate as well as to interstate and foreign communications (over wires used for both kinds), and bars admission in trials in the federal courts of evidence obtained by interception of such intrastate telephone communications. P. 308 U. S. 329.
2. As Congress has power, when necessary for the protection of interstate commerce, to regulate intrastate transactions, there is no constitutional requirement that the scope of the statute be limited so as to exclude intrastate communications. P. 308 U. S. 327.
3. The broad and inclusive language of the second clause of § 605, quoted supra, is not to be limited by construction so as to exclude intrastate communications from the protection against interception and divulgence. P. 308 U. S. 329.
4. Held: Evidence of intercepted intrastate telephone communications which had been recorded by stenograph and phonograph was inadmissible in a trial in the federal court, and it was prejudicial error for the court to admit such evidence either by permitting the parties to the telephone conversation, who had turned state's evidence, to read the stenographic transcript, or by allowing the prosecutor to put the stenographic transcripts and phonograph records in evidence upon identification by the parties to the conversation. The divulgence of the communications under the circumstances here was not "authorized by the sender" within the meaning of § 605. Pp. 308 U. S. 329, 308 U. S. 331.
Certiorari, 307 U.S. 621, to review the affirmance of convictions and sentences of the petitioners upon indictments for using the mails to defraud and for conspiracy. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The petitioners were indicted, with five others, in the District Court for the Southern District of New York for using the mails to defraud and for conspiracy so to use them. [Footnote 1] The alleged scheme was to cheat insurance companies by inducing them to pay false claims for disability, health, and accident benefits to three of the defendants, Nelson, Berger, and Spitz. These three pleaded guilty and testified for the Government. Three defendants who were physicians -- Messman, Goldstein, and Krupp -- were alleged to have assisted by furnishing policyholders false medical certificates and instructing them how to simulate illness. Messman pleaded guilty and testified for the Government. The other two stood trial. Two lawyers, Joseph J. Weiss, and Alfred L. Weiss, and an investigator, Gross, were charged with having furthered the claims knowing them to be false. Alfred L. Weiss was granted a severance; Joseph J. Weiss and Gross stood trial. Each of the petitioners was convicted and sentenced. The judgments were affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. [Footnote 2]
The conspiracy and scheme charged covered a period extending from January 15, 1934, to July 30, 1937, the date of the indictment. The principal issue of fact was whether the petitioners participated in making false claims with guilty knowledge. Over objection and exception, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Government's procedure at the trial in proving the communications was to call as a witness one of the defendants who had pleaded guilty, and to hand him a transcript chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The petitioners' objections to the admission of this evidence were that it would violate § 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934; [Footnote 3] would violate the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the Federal Constitution, and would be in the teeth of § 1423, subdivision 6, of the Penal Law of the New York, [Footnote 4] making wire tapping a crime.
Because of conflict of decision in the Circuit Courts of Appeal, [Footnote 5] we granted certiorari, limited to the "question whether the trial court properly received in evidence intercepted telephone communications." [Footnote 6]
In Nardone v. United States, 302 U. S. 379, it was decided that § 605 of the Federal Communications Act prohibited the reception in a federal court of evidence of interstate communications obtained by federal agents by tapping telephone wires. The petitioners assert, and the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Plainly the interdiction thus pronounced is not limited to interstate and foreign communications. And, as Congress has power, when necessary for the protection of interstate commerce, to regulate intrastate transactions, [Footnote 7] there is no constitutional requirement that the scope of the statute be limited so as to exclude intrastate communications.
In support of the petitioners' view, it is pointed out that each clause of § 605 is complete in itself; that, in the first and third clauses, which deal with divulgence of messages by persons engaged in receiving or transmitting them, the communications are specified as "any interstate or foreign communication," whereas, in the second and fourth chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
clauses, which deal with interception and divulgence of communications, the phrases used are "any communication" and "such intercepted communication." It is argued that the difference in phraseology must have significance, and, in support of the assertion that the variety of expression was not due to inadvertence, the petitioners call attention to the fact that § 605 was taken over from § 27 of the Radio Act of 1927, [Footnote 8] which, referring to radio messages, used uniformly, in each clause, the term "communication" or "message," and nowhere qualified the designation by the use of the phrase "in interstate or foreign commerce."
The Government correctly asserts that the main purpose of the Communications Act of 1934 was to extend the jurisdiction of the existing Radio Commission to embrace telegraph and telephone communications as well as those by radio. We are asked to hold that, if Congress chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Government further contends that the Act, viewed as a whole, indicates an intent to regulate only interstate and foreign communication. The title and §§ 1 and 2, with a single exception which serves to emphasize the distinction, expressly so declare. But we think these considerations are not controlling in the construction of § 605. The Commission's regulatory powers and administrative functions have to do only with interstate and foreign communications. But § 605 delegates no function and confers no power upon the Commission. It consists of prohibitions, sanctions for violation of which are found in § 501. [Footnote 9] We hold that the broad and inclusive language of the second clause of the section is not to be limited by construction so as to exclude intrastate communications from the protection against interception and divulgence.
We come, then, to the Government's second proposition -- that disclosure of the intercepted communications was "authorized by the sender" within the meaning of the clause. It is true that one or both of the parties to each of the admitted communications attested in the manner we have indicated to the intercepted conversations. This chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Valli v. United States, 94 F.2d 687; Diamond v. United States, 94 F.2d 1012, and opinion on petition for rehearing, 108 F.2d 859; Sablowsky v. United States, 101 F.2d 183.
Shreveport Case, 234 U. S. 342, 234 U. S. 351-352; United States v. Louisiana, 290 U. S. 70, 290 U. S. 75; Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 301 U. S. 38.