Opinion ID: 2465153
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Fifteen Day Reports

Text: Next, the trial court found a lack of compliance with the reporting requirements contained in the wiretap orders. Section 16-15-102(7) permits, but does not require a judge issuing a wiretap order to include in the order a requirement for periodic reports, detailing what progress has been made toward the objective and the need for continued interception. If the judge does include such a provision, reports shall be made at such times as the judge may require. In this case, the order contained a requirement that law enforcement provide a progress report to the court every fifteen days. The trial court found that the fifteen-day reports in this case were not in compliance with the court's orders for three reasons: (1) no reports were filed for Subject Telephone One; (2) the reports filed for the other numbers did not adequately explain the progress that had been made; and (3) the fifth periodic report for Subject Telephone Two was not filed until five months after the interception had been terminated. Because the wiretap statute does not require progress reports, thus allowing a judge to completely dispense with the requirement, the sufficiency of any progress reports required by a wiretap order is left to the discretion of the judge issuing the order. In re DeMonte, 674 F.2d 1169, 1174 (7th Cir.1982); Vento, 533 F.2d at 853-54. This rule applies even when no reports have been filed at all. For example, when the government does not submit a progress report because it has already discontinued the surveillance, and the judge who issued the wiretap order does not object to the failure to make the report, suppression is not required. United States v. Breland, 356 F.3d 787, 794 (7th Cir.2004). Turning to the progress reports in the present case, and the first issue raised by the trial court, we hold that the lack of reports filed for Subject Telephone One did not warrant suppression. The facts here are similar to Breland, where the government did not submit a progress report because it had already discontinued surveillance. Here, wiretapping on Subject Telephone One was discontinued after ten days due to inactivity. Although there was not a progress report filed, various documents submitted to the court reported that interception on Subject Telephone One had been terminated. For example, the affidavit attached to the application for Subject Telephone Two explained that the reason for requesting interception on Subject Telephone Two was that the holder of Subject Telephone One lost his cell phone and got a new number, Subject Telephone Two. Additionally, all subsequent applications contained a summary of related wiretap applications and orders, which included a notation that interception on Subject Telephone One had been discontinued. Whereas Chief Judge Samelson was made aware of the discontinuance of the interception on Subject Telephone One, and presumably was satisfied with the information he was given despite the lack of a formal report, evidence should not be suppressed because of the missing progress reports. Due to the optional nature of the reports, it was also within the Chief Judge's discretion to overlook the other alleged reporting problems. Despite the tardiness of one report and the alleged content deficiencies in the others, there is no evidence that the Chief Judge was dissatisfied with the reports. Therefore, the evidence should not have been suppressed due to the trial court's later determination that the reports were inadequate.