Opinion ID: 506589
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Challenges to the Government's Electronic Surveillance

Text: 79 Alleging that the government violated various provisions of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1969 pertaining to Wire and Electronic Communications Interception and Interception of Oral Communications, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2510-2521, Angiulo and Kazonis moved to suppress all tape recordings of conversations recorded by the government at 98 Prince Street and 51 North Margin Street. After hearing arguments and taking written submissions from the parties, the district court denied the defendants' motions. United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. 1515 (D.Mass.1985). The defendants now assert that the court erred in failing to suppress that evidence, or, alternatively, by not providing them with evidentiary hearings on their suppression motions. 80 As a preliminary matter, we agree with the district court that Angiulo and Kazonis had no standing to challenge the admissibility of the tape recordings made at 51 North Margin Street. We adopt the well-reasoned opinion of the district court on that point. 610 F.Supp. at 1521-22. Thus, we focus solely on the defendants' challenges to the tape recordings of conversations recorded at 98 Prince Street.
81 Electronic surveillance of 98 Prince Street began on January 19, 1981 and continued through May 3, 1981. On April 10, 1981, the district court granted the government's motion for a disclosure order pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2517(5), thereby allowing the government to utilize intercepted conversations to prosecute offenses that were not specified in the district court's surveillance orders, including the RICO charges. 82 The government did not simultaneously record duplicate originals of all recorded conversations, but made copies of all the conversations as the surveillance progressed. In the course of the surveillance, the agents monitoring the tapes became aware of audibility problems. On May 5, 1981, the original tapes were placed under seal and supervision of the district court in compliance with 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2518(8)(a), which provides that [i]mmediately upon the expiration of the period of the order [authorizing surveillance], ... such recordings shall be made available to the judge issuing such order and sealed under his directions. 83 On three occasions, however, between June and September 1981, the government moved for and was granted the right to unseal the bulk of the original tape recordings (over 300 in total) for audio enhancement purposes. The government allegedly needed to use the originals for the enhancement process because of background noise in the copies. Pursuant to judicial order, the government was permitted to transport the tapes to Washington, D.C., where they were enhanced and then returned to the court and placed under seal again. 84 After the grand jury returned its indictment, Angiulo, Kazonis and other co-defendants filed motions to suppress the tape recordings contending, inter alia, that the court should suppress the original tapes because (1) the sealing requirement of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2518(8)(a) had been violated, (2) the government failed to minimize the interception of conversations outside the scope of the court's surveillance orders in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2518(5), and (3) under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2517(5), the court could not allow the government to utilize (or disclose) intercepted conversations unrelated to offenses set forth in the surveillance orders. The defendants now appeal the district court's denial of their motion to suppress on these grounds. 27
85 The question of whether and under what circumstances the government may unseal tape recordings previously sealed pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2518(8)(a) is one of first impression for us, and it has not, to our knowledge, been addressed by any other circuit. 86 Section 2518(8)(a) provides, in pertinent part, as follows: 87 The recording of the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication under this subsection shall be done in such way as will protect the recording from editing or other alterations. Immediately upon the expiration of the period of the order, or extensions thereof, such recordings shall be made available to the judge issuing such order and sealed under his directions. Custody of the recordings shall be wherever the judge orders.... The presence of the seal provided for by this subsection, or a satisfactory explanation for the absence thereof, shall be a prerequisite for the use or disclosure of the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication or evidence derived therefrom under subsection (3) of section 2517. 28 88 We recently addressed, in United States v. Mora, 821 F.2d 860 (1st Cir.1987), the issue of whether section 2518(8)(a) mandated the suppression of intercepted conversations when the government failed immediately to place original tapes under judicial seal after the expiration of the period for authorized surveillance. We concluded that section 2518(8)(a) contained its own exclusionary rule, and if the government failed to comply with the sealing requirements of that section, surveillance evidence would have to be suppressed unless the government proved by clear and convincing evidence that there was a satisfactory explanation for its failure immediately to seal. Id. at 866-68. Recognizing that the essential purpose of this section is to protect the authenticity and accuracy of the recordings, we held that the government's first task in establishing a satisfactory explanation would be to prove that the integrity of the tapes had not been compromised. Id. at 867. If it met that burden, the government would then be required to show that its delay in sealing came about in good faith and that such delay did not prejudice the accused or provide the prosecution with a tactical advantage. Id. at 868-69. 89 The district court's decision not to suppress the tapes in the case at bar was made prior to our decision in Mora. The court concluded, in any event, that cases from other circuits addressing the problem of delays in sealing were inapplicable to the question of whether a judicial order allowing unsealing was proper. United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. at 1526. It held that Congress simply failed to address the question of unsealing, and that courts have inherent authority to order unsealing of tapes previously sealed upon a showing of good cause. Id. The district court therefore rejected the defendants' position that the statute automatically required suppression of the tapes because of the government's unsealing. 90 We agree that the defendants' argument for automatic suppression of unsealed tapes is untenable. While such unsealing should never be allowed as a matter of course, courts should have the discretion to order temporary unsealing, as the district court concluded, for good cause shown. 29 On the other hand, defendants are not without protection in the unsealing context; we think that the standards applicable in delay-of-sealing cases, like Mora, are relevant to the unsealing problem. 91 The court's order allowing the government to unseal the original tapes and transport them to Washington, D.C. for enhancement outside the presence of any judicial officer created a risk that the original tapes could be altered or tampered with. We agree with the district court's apparent reasoning, see 610 F.Supp. at 1526, that there was perhaps some moral deterrent to the agents' alteration of the tapes since the government's unsealing and transportation of the tapes was prescribed by court order. But that does not eliminate the risk of alteration addressed by section 2518(8)(a). 92 In cases involving unsealing of tapes, there would seem to be no less of a risk of frustrating the purposes underlying section 2518(8)(a)--the assurance of the accuracy and genuineness of tape recordings--than in situations where the government fails immediately to place the original tapes under seal. To the extent that the procedures followed in sealing or unsealing compromise the integrity of tape recorded conversations, the congressional purposes underlying section 2518(8)(a) would be thwarted and suppression of that evidence would be called for. See United States v. Mora, 821 F.2d at 867. We therefore conclude that the guidelines set forth in Mora apply to cases involving the government's unsealing. 93 Accordingly, judicial orders authorizing the unsealing of tape recordings previously placed under judicial seal pursuant to section 2518(8)(a) should be granted only for good cause shown by the government. If the unsealing of such tapes is challenged in a motion to suppress, the government should be required to prove (1) that the unsealing and use of the tapes did not result in alterations or tampering and (2) that the circumstances necessitating unsealing were not manufactured for tactical gain and that the defendants will not be unduly prejudiced as a result of the unsealing. See United States v. Mora, 821 F.2d at 867-68. 94 In this case all standards have been met. First, the district court properly found that the government made a good cause showing for the temporary unsealing. United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. at 1526. Second, although the court made no pretrial findings, the record shows that there was extensive examination and cross-examination of the agents involved in the custody and enhancing of the tapes while unsealed, and permits only the conclusion that the integrity of the tapes was not compromised. The chain of custody was clearly established, the extensive spatial security arrangements at the FBI headquarters, where the tapes were kept, were described, and agents Quinn and Ritenour, who were in charge of the custody and enhancement process, testified unequivocally that there were no unauthorized persons with access to the tapes, no tampering, no deletions, and no additions. 30 Third, we find no indication or suggestion of bad faith or of unnecessary delay in returning the tapes to the court after enhancement.
95 The defendants contend that the tapes should not have been admitted against them because the government violated section 2518(5), which requires that every authorized surveillance shall be conducted in such a way as to minimize the interception of communications not otherwise subject to interception under this chapter.... 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2518(5). They argue that the government's practice of intermittent monitoring--the practice of randomly turning the recording equipment on for two minutes and then off for one minute--was not proper compliance with section 2518(5)'s minimization requirement; and they point to the government's widespread interception, in the early weeks of surveillance, of conversations that were noncriminal in nature as evidence of the government's violation of the statute. We agree with the district court's treatment of these arguments. See United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. at 1527-29. 31 96 The Supreme Court has pointed out that section 2518(5) does not forbid the interception of all nonrelevant conversations, but rather instructs the agents to conduct the surveillance in such a manner as to 'minimize' the interception of such conversations. Whether the agents have in fact conducted the wiretap in such a manner will depend on the facts and circumstances of each case. Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 140, 98 S.Ct. 1717, 1724, 56 L.Ed.2d 168 (1978). And whether the statute has been violated in any particular case depends upon the objective reasonableness of the agents' conduct. Id. at 137, 98 S.Ct. at 1723; United States v. Clerkley, 556 F.2d 709, 716 (4th Cir.1977). 97 We follow the majority of other circuits that have considered this question and look to three key factors to ascertain, in any given case, whether the minimization requirements of section 2518(5) have been met: (1) the nature, scope, and complexity of the alleged criminal activities under investigation; (2) the extent to which the government had accrued, in advance of the surveillance, information needed to screen out conversations that were not within the scope of alleged offenses under investigation through the authorization for surveillance; and (3) the degree of judicial supervision over the surveillance practices. See id.; United States v. Daly, 535 F.2d 434, 441-42 (8th Cir.1976); United States v. Vento, 533 F.2d 838, 852-53 (3d Cir.1976); United States v. Quintana, 508 F.2d 867, 874-75 (7th Cir.1975). Considering each of these factors, we conclude that the government's surveillance of 98 Prince Street did not violate the statute. 98 First, the alleged criminal activities that the agents were authorized to investigate were highly organized and complicated, involving multiple parties. In this situation, as the district court pointed out,  'more extensive surveillance may be justified in an attempt to determine the precise scope of the enterprise.'  United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. at 1529 (quoting Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. at 140, 98 S.Ct. at 1725). 99 Second, in the initial stages of surveillance, the monitoring agents could not easily decipher which conversations were and were not relevant to the alleged offenses under investigation. Given the complex nature of the criminal activities in question and the jargon used by those under investigation, it was reasonable for the agents to monitor, almost continuously, the conversations taking place at 98 Prince Street in order to discern patterns of conversation that were and were not relevant. See Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. at 140-42, 98 S.Ct. at 1724-26; United States v. Clerkley, 556 F.2d at 717. This was particularly true during the early stages of the surveillance, see Scott, 436 U.S. at 141, 98 S.Ct. at 1725, which was the only time, the defendants claimed, that the agents intercepted a large number of conversations unrelated to criminal offenses. See United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. at 1529. In addition, the intermittent monitoring technique used by agents to minimize interceptions of conversations beyond the scope of the surveillance authorizations was a reasonable and appropriate method for spot-checking the flow of conversations in case the subject matter of those conversations turned from matters outside of the authorized investigation to matters within the surveillance authorization. See, e.g., United States v. Hinton, 543 F.2d 1002, 1012 (2d Cir.1976) (five minute spot checks not violative of minimization requirement); United States v. Daly, 535 F.2d at 442 & n. 8). 100 Finally, the district court correctly found that the monitoring agents' submission of regular five-day progress reports to the judge authorizing the surveillance ensured compliance with the minimization requirements of the statute. See United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. at 1528. Such judicial oversight of surveillance practices is recognized as an ongoing check upon the reasonableness of the agents' conduct. See, e.g., United States v. Clerkley, 556 F.2d at 718; United States v. Quintana, 508 F.2d at 875. 101 Given all of these factors, we conclude that the government's monitoring techniques were not unreasonable. The district court correctly concluded that the minimization requirements of section 2518(5) did not require suppression of the tape recordings made at 98 Prince Street. 32
102 Angiulo's and Kazonis's final complaint regarding the taped conversations is that the district court erred in failing to suppress the tapes on the grounds that the government should not have been permitted to disclose or utilize conversations related to crimes other than those for which surveillance was authorized. 103 Upon intercepting conversations pertaining to RICO violations--crimes outside the scope of the surveillance authorizations--the government moved for an order, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2517(5), permitting it to utilize that evidence to prosecute the defendants under RICO. 33 A district court judge other than the judge who presided over the defendants' motion to suppress the tapes had granted the government's motion for disclosure of evidence pertaining to the RICO offenses. 104 In United States v. McKinnon, 721 F.2d 19 (1st Cir.1983), we set forth the standards for such disclosure orders as follows: 105 Congress intended that evidence relating to unauthorized offenses should be given retroactive judicial approval under section 2517(5) if the original wiretap warrant was lawfully obtained, was sought in good faith and not as a subterfuge search, and that the communication was in fact incidentally intercepted during the course of a lawfully executed order. 106 Id. at 22 (quotations and citations omitted) (emphasis in original). The defendants argued in their motion to suppress, and maintain on appeal, that the government obtained its disclosure motion through subterfuge--that it always intended to obtain conversations related to RICO violations, but was constrained in applying for surveillance authorization to that end because of our decision in Turkette, restricting application of RICO to wholly legal enterprises--and that the conversations pertaining to the RICO offenses were not incidentally intercepted. We find no merit in these assertions; the district court's finding that the government's application for surveillance at 98 Prince Street was not subterfuge was not clearly erroneous. See United States v. Gambale, 610 F.Supp. at 1527. 107 In any event, even if we held that disclosure of intercepted conversations related to other crimes was improper and that suppression of those particular conversations was required, the defendants' convictions would stand. As the government points out, all its interceptions of conversations pertaining to the offenses for which Angiulo and Kazonis were convicted were properly authorized by the district court. 34 The unauthorized interceptions that the defendants complain of were RICO-related. The defendants were not convicted on the RICO conspiracy or substantive RICO charges in the indictment, and we have concluded, supra Part IIIB, that the claimed spillover effect of the introduction of evidence concerning RICO violations at trial was harmless. Thus, even if we agreed with the defendants and excluded the conversations intercepted at 98 Prince Street concerning offenses not specified in the surveillance authorizations, we would not disturb their convictions. 108 E. The Government's Claim of Privilege Not to Disclose at Trial the Location of Microphones at 98 Prince Street, and Subsequent Disclosures to the Boston Globe 109 At trial, the defendants attempted to extract testimony from government agents concerning the location of microphones used to intercept conversations at 98 Prince Street. The government claimed that it was entitled to a qualified privilege not to disclose that information because disclosure would reveal sensitive surveillance techniques and thereby hinder future criminal investigations. The trial judge recognized the asserted privilege and allowed the government to withhold the requested information. In response to the defendants' contention that without disclosure they were unable to challenge the government's asserted inferences that they participated in and heard certain conversations at 98 Prince Street, the court gave the jury the following instruction: 110 Members of the jury, the defendants in this case have sought to establish the location of the microphones both at 98 Prince Street and 51 North Margin Street. The Government has elected to decline to furnish that information and claims a privilege not to do so. I have ruled that such a privilege exists; and you may draw such inferences, if any, as you may consider reasonable from the absence of evidence before you as to the specific location of the microphones. 111 Tr. vol. 49, p. 147. 112 After trial and sentencing, certain newspaper articles appeared in the Boston Globe concerning the investigation at 98 Prince Street. One article appearing April 5, 1987, entitled FBI bug marked beginning of end for Hub's Mafia leaders, reported: 113 Resuming their work, [FBI agents] wired the microphones to power cells the size of fireplace logs and carefully placed them above the dropped ceiling tiles. The installers made sure that the heavy units were safely in place. Their concern was that the ceiling could collapse under their weight, and the units would crash into Angiulo's lap. If that happened, the bugging operation would collapse too. They stuffed mounds of insulation around the power units, the idea being to make it as hard as possible for anyone to find the three power packs. In this case, there would not be any hookup to a telephone or electrical line, not after the Angiulos caught wind of their past efforts to use the two utility companies to supply power for a bug and camera. They had learned their lesson not to go outside the agency. The buzzword was self-reliance. The risk of having to reenter the apartment every 30 days to replace the drained power units was determined to be less than the risk of a leak from outsiders. 114 United States v. Cincotti, 678 F.Supp. 346, 348 (D.Mass.1987). Another article on April 7, 1987 reported on a discussion between Gennaro Angiulo and Richard Gambale that took place on March 19, 1981. The article states, Angiulo turned up the TV even louder than usual and lowered his voice. It was 9:29 a.m. and one of the two FBI microphones was hidden directly above the two men. Id. at 349. 115 Following their convictions, the defendants moved for a new trial, contending that these articles constituted newly discovered evidence that the government had asserted its privilege not to disclose the whereabouts of the microphones in bad faith, and, as a result, the defendants had been deprived of their constitutional rights to cross-examine and confront government witnesses at trial. We stayed the defendants' appeals to allow the district court the opportunity to rule on the motion for new trial. In a memorandum and order dated July 31, 1987, the district court denied that motion along with the defendants' request for an evidentiary hearing on the government's alleged bad faith. Id. at 347-53. Angiulo and Kazonis now assert that the district court erred in denying their motion for a new trial. 116 1. The Government's Privilege of Nondisclosure 117 In its memorandum and order the district court correctly concluded that our recent decision in United States v. Cintolo, 818 F.2d at 1001-03, was fully dispositive of the government's claimed privilege. In Cintolo we recognized the government's qualified privilege not to disclose, in the course of severed codefendant Cintolo's trial, the location of the microphones at 98 Prince Street. Id. at 1002. We said that the privilege could be overcome if the defendant could show an authentic and sufficient need for the information that would outweigh the government's privilege. Id. In evaluating the defendant's showing of need, we considered whether there were  'adequate alternative means'  for the defendant to establish, before the jury, the same points that would be made if the government made the requested disclosures. Id. (quoting United States v. Harley, 682 F.2d 1018, 1020 (D.C.Cir.1982)). 118 Angiulo and Kazonis assert, as did Cintolo, that government testimony concerning the location of the microphones was necessary to their defense because the government relied on inferences that they participated in and heard conversations at 98 Prince Street when they were present there. 35 There was more than sufficient opportunity, however, for the defendants to present their argument to the jury about doubts as to the government's ability to prove the defendants' participation in, and knowledge of, conversations that took place at 98 Prince Street. As in the Cintolo case, the record reflects that the jury heard evidence regarding the size of the Prince Street apartment--evidence from which it could have concluded that not all persons present in the apartment necessarily heard every conversation (let alone, every word of every conversation). Id. at 1003. In fact, the jury was taken to 98 Prince Street for a viewing of the apartment. We made clear in Cintolo that this viewing would be a means for a defendant to raise doubts to the jury concerning his involvement in the conversations. Id. 119 These factors persuade us that sufficient alternative means other than disclosure of the location of the government's microphones at 98 Prince Street were not only open to, but were exploited by, the defendants in this case in order to make the point that they wanted to make through use of the privileged information. See id. at 1003. Beyond this, the district court's instruction to the jury singling out the lack of evidence regarding the location of the microphones fully protected the points that the defendant wished to raise; the defendants retained wide latitude to paint a hypothesis about the location of the microphones that would be most favorable to their position. We therefore find no error in the district court's recognition of the government's privilege not to disclose the location of the microphones. 2. Defendants' Rights to a New Trial 120 The defendants contend that the articles in the Boston Globe constitute newly discovered evidence warranting the grant of a new trial. They assert that the government's claim of privilege was made in bad faith because the FBI's subsequent disclosure to the press of details concerning the surveillance at 98 Prince Street reveals that the location information sought by the defendants at trial was not, in fact, confidential. They argue that if the information given to the press had been provided to them at trial they would have been able to establish the precise locations of the microphones and would have had a better opportunity to rebut the government's asserted inference that they participated in incriminating conversations at 98 Prince Street. 36 121 Taking into account all the defense affidavits accompanying the motion for new trial as if there were no valid evidentiary objections to them, the district court concluded that there was little support for the defendants' contention that the government acted in bad faith in claiming its privilege at trial. United States v. Cincotti, 678 F.Supp. at 350. It pointed out that the Boston Globe's reports about the location of the microphones over the heads of Gennaro Angiulo and Gambale were just as likely speculations based on journalistic license as they were reports of facts obtained from FBI sources. The court concluded, moreover, that even if the defendants showed bad faith on the part of the government, they failed to show that they were prejudiced or harmed by not having available the newly discovered evidence gleaned from the Boston Globe articles at trial. 122 Motions for new trials are directed to the sound discretion of the trial court. E.g., United States v. Rivera-Sola, 713 F.2d 866, 874 (1st Cir.1983); United States v. Wright, 625 F.2d 1017, 1019 (1st Cir.1980). Keeping in mind that such a remedy is sparingly used, we review the district court's denial of the defendants' motion for abuse of discretion. Id. A district court is well within its discretion in denying a defendant's motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence if the defendant has failed to demonstrate that access to such evidence would probably result in an acquital. Id. And any factfinding on the part of the district court will not be disturbed unless clearly erroneous. Id. 123 We find that the district court was well within its discretion in denying the defendants' motion for a new trial. The defendants failed to show that their access to the information in the Boston Globe articles would have changed the jury's verdicts. Indeed, given the options available to, and exploited by, the defendants to make their point to the jury about their possible lack of participation in the incriminating conversations at 98 Prince Street and the district court's instruction to the jury about the lack of evidence concerning the location of the microphones, the defendants can hardly assert that they would have benefitted from knowledge even of the precise locations of the microphones at trial. Without that evidence they could exploit, to the fullest, hypotheses about the locations that would raise reasonable doubts in the jurors minds concerning their participation in those conversations. 124 We affirm the district court's denial of the defendants' motion for a new trial. 125 F. The Government's Use of Peremptory Challenges 126 The final argument jointly asserted by Angiulo and Kazonis is that the government's use of peremptory challenges to strike blacks and Italian-Americans from the jury violated their constitutional rights to equal protection according to the Supreme Court's pronouncements in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). 127 The prosecution used 2 of its 7 peremptory challenges to eliminate 2 out of 4 blacks from the 31 member jury venire. It also used 4 of its peremptory challenges to eliminate 4 out of 7 of the potential jurors who had Italian-American sounding names. The defendants objected to the government's use of peremptory challenges, claiming that it was excluding jurors on account of race and national origin. The district judge then asked the government to explain its use of peremptories, and found that the government had articulated sufficient non-racial and non-ethnic reasons for its challenges. The defendants now argue that they had established a prima facie case of discriminatory use of peremptory challenges by the government, and that the district court erred in concluding that the government's explanation was sufficient to overcome their equal protection claims. 128 We find no merit in the defendants' assertions. First, as the government points out, to make out a prima facie case of purposeful discrimination under Batson, the defendants must be members of the ethnic or racial group that they contend was discriminated against by the government. Since Angiulo and Kazonis are not black, they cannot complain about the government's peremptory challenges to black members of the jury venire. Batson v. Kentucky, 106 S.Ct. at 1723; United States v. Vaccaro, 816 F.2d 443, 457 (9th Cir.1987). Second, [b]ecause appellants did not even attempt to show that Italian-Americans either have been or are currently subjected to discriminatory treatment, their claim fails to meet the initial requirement under Batson that the defendant show his or her membership in a 'cognizable' group. United States v. Bucci, 839 F.2d 825, 833 (1st Cir.1988). For these reasons, the district court correctly rejected the defendants' equal protection claim. 129 Beyond this, even assuming that the defendants had established their prima facie case under Batson, the district court found objectively reasonable the government's proffered non-discriminatory reasons for striking individuals with Italian-American sounding names from the jury venire. In Batson, the Supreme Court said that to overcome a defendant's prima facie showing of discrimination the government must come forward with a neutral explanation for its use of peremptory challenges. Here the government provided sufficient neutral explanations for eliminating jurors with Italian-American sounding names. 37 The district court's finding in this regard, which is entitled to appropriate deference by a reviewing court, Batson v. Kentucky, 106 S.Ct. at 1724 n. 21, is not clearly erroneous. 130 We therefore conclude that the district court properly overruled the defendants' objections to the government's use of peremptory challenges. 38