Opinion ID: 449467
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Facial Constitutionality of Title III.

Text: 24 Next, appellants assert that Title III is facially invalid because it permits general warrants to issue in contravention of the fourth amendment. 25 In Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 87 S.Ct. 1873, 18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967), the Supreme Court held that electronic surveillance not based on probable cause or obtained without particularizing the scope and duration of the interceptions violates the fourth amendment. The following term, in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), the court held that even narrowly circumscribed electronic surveillance must have prior judicial sanction and its attendant safeguards in order to satisfy fourth amendment requirements. 26 Title III was enacted, in large part, to meet the restrictions imposed on electronic surveillance practices and procedures by Berger and Katz. See S.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. 66 (1968), reprinted in 1968 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 2112, 2161-63; see also Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. at 130, 98 S.Ct. at 1719. This comprehensive statutory scheme circumscribes the use of electronic surveillance by law enforcement officials and provides for detailed procedures to insure that any surveillance undertaken will comport with constitutional requirements. Although the Supreme Court has never explicitly held Title III constitutional, our circuit has previously upheld the statute against the claim that it was unconstitutional on its face, United States v. Tortorello, 480 F.2d 764, 771-75 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 866, 94 S.Ct. 63, 38 L.Ed.2d 86 (1973), as has every other circuit court that has addressed the issue. E.g., United States v. Turner, 528 F.2d 143, 158-59 (9th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom, Grimes v. United States, 423 U.S. 996, 96 S.Ct. 426, 46 L.Ed.2d 371 (1975); United States v. Sklaroff, 506 F.2d 837, 840 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 874, 96 S.Ct. 142, 46 L.Ed.2d 105 (1975); United States v. Ramsey, 503 F.2d 524, 526-31 (7th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 932, 95 S.Ct. 1136, 43 L.Ed.2d 405 (1975); United States v. Martinez, 498 F.2d 464, 467-68 (6th Cir.), cert. denied 419 U.S. 1056, 95 S.Ct. 639, 42 L.Ed.2d 654 (1974); United States v. James, 494 F.2d 1007, 1012-13 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1020, 95 S.Ct. 495, 42 L.Ed.2d 294 (1974); United States v. Bobo, 477 F.2d 974, 978-82 (4th Cir.1973), cert. denied sub nom, Gray v. United States, 421 U.S. 909, 95 S.Ct. 1557, 43 L.Ed.2d 774 (1975); United States v. Cafero, 473 F.2d 489, 493-501 (3rd Cir.1973), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 918, 94 S.Ct. 2622, 41 L.Ed.2d 223 (1974); United States v. Cox, 462 F.2d 1293, 1302-04 (8th Cir.1972), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 918, 94 S.Ct. 2623, 41 L.Ed.2d 223 (1974); United States v. Cox, 449 F.2d 679, 683-87 (10th Cir.1971), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 934, 92 S.Ct. 1783, 32 L.Ed.2d 136 (1972). 27 More particularly, the mere fact that Title III allows interception of conversations of others as yet unknown does not render the statute unconstitutional on its face as authorizing a general warrant. See United States v. Martinez, 498 F.2d at 467-68; United States v. Ramsey, 503 F.2d at 526. As the Supreme Court pointed out in United States v. Kahn, 415 U.S. at 154-55 and n. 15, 94 S.Ct. at 983-84 and n. 15, just as the failure of an ordinary search warrant to name the persons from whom property is to be seized does not automatically render the warrant an invalid general warrant, a wiretap order which does not specify every person whose conversations may be intercepted does not per se amount to a virtual general warrant in violation of the fourth amendment. Instead, a court must analyze the facts of each case in order to determine whether the wiretap order and any monitoring searches undertaken pursuant to it conform to fourth amendment requirements. 28 Appellants argue that the Supreme Court's decision in Scott v. United States in effect diminishes the minimization requirement to the point where Title III, on its face, is subject to fourth amendment attack, citing Justice Brennan's dissent in Scott, 436 U.S. at 147-48, 98 S.Ct. at 1728 (    as judicially 'enforced', Title III may be vulnerable to constitutional attack for violation of Fourth Amendment standards, thus defeating the careful effort Congress made to avert that result.). We disagree. Scott held that a violation of the minimization requirement contained in Sec. 2518(5) turns on an objective assessment of the officer's actions in light of the facts and circumstances confronting him at the time, 436 U.S. at 136, 98 S.Ct. at 1723, not merely on his subjective intent when he conducted the wiretap. The court further determined that, on the facts before it, the agents' conduct was reasonable and therefore did not violate either the statute or the fourth amendment. Notwithstanding the warning issued by Justice Brennan in dissent, we find nothing in Scott to persuade us that the minimization requirement has become so diluted as to render Title III unconstitutional on its face. Although the ATU telephones were used by more individuals than the private telephones tapped in Kahn or in United States v. Donovan, 429 U.S. 413, 97 S.Ct. 658, 50 L.Ed.2d 652 (1977), they were a far cry from public telephones used, e.g., in a railway station or a bus terminal. More important, the telephones being tapped were prison telephones for use by prisoners; whatever prisoners' reasonable expectations of privacy may otherwise be, it is clear that incarceration greatly diminishes these with respect to contacts with the outside. Cf. Hudson v. Palmer, --- U.S. ----, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). Moreover, these prisoners were on notice of the possibility that their calls were being monitored. Under such circumstances, a wiretap order that, in compliance with the requirements of Title III, authorizes police to intercept telephone calls made by unidentified persons does not violate the fourth amendment. We therefore reject appellants' challenge to Title III and the particular order in this case on the ground of facial unconstitutionality; any possibility of success by appellants must, therefore, hinge on demonstrating that the government acted unreasonably in a particular instance in carrying out the order. See Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. at 139-41, 98 S.Ct. at 1724-25. To this question we now turn. 29