Opinion ID: 216064
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Dubose's Motion To Suppress

Text: On appeal, Dubose maintains that Agent Somerville's first affidavit fell short of the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirement. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. U.S. Const. amend. IV (emphasis added). Dubose contends that Agent Somerville's affidavit failed to particularly describ[e] the places to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized because it omitted any reference to Dubose, whose telephone conversations were subsequently recorded. Dubose maintains that Agent Somerville's affidavit stated that Somerville had probable cause to believe that only Tyson, Gaines, and other named individuals were involved in the conspiracy under investigation, along with others unknown. Dubose contends that this residual, catch-all clause referencing others unknown is too general to satisfy the Fourth Amendment and that the affidavit was unsupported by probable cause to entitle law enforcement to eavesdrop on Dubose's conversations. The District Court reviewed the suppression hearing transcript and made a de novo determination concerning those portions of the magistrate's findings and recommendations to which appellants objected. United States v. Garcia, 785 F.2d 214, 222 (8th Cir.1986) (reviewing a wiretap application affidavit). Accordingly, [t]hese determinations are findings of fact, which we must uphold unless clearly erroneous. Id. Still, our review of a district court's probable cause determination is actually a mixed question of law and fact. United States v. Williams, 616 F.3d 760, 764 (8th Cir.2010) (quoting United States v. Parish, 606 F.3d 480, 486 (8th Cir.2010)). Consequently, [i]n reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, we review the district court's factual determinations for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo.  Id. (quoting Parish 606 F.3d at 486). Ultimately, [t]he existence of probable cause is a mixed question of law and fact that we review de novo.  Id. We hold that the district court did not err in concluding, as a matter of law, that Agent Somerville's affidavit stated sufficient particularity and probable cause under the Fourth Amendment. Title III codifies its own particularity and probable-cause standards for wiretap applications and orders. Specifically, it requires wiretap applications to provide the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted, 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(b)(iv), and wiretap orders to specify . . . the identity of the person, if known, whose communications are to be intercepted, id. § 2518(4)(a). We have long held that the statutory probable cause standards set out in Title III are co-extensive with the constitutional requirements embodied in the fourth amendment. United States v. Leisure, 844 F.2d 1347, 1354 (8th Cir.1988) (emphasis added). But, to the extent Dubose reads that line of Eighth Circuit precedent as holding that the wiretap statute's particularity requirements are coextensive with the Fourth Amendment's, Dubose misreads our case law. Indeed, any assertion that Title III's particularity requirements are coextensive with the Fourth Amendment's contradicts the Supreme Court's clear statement that, [i]n the wiretap context, [the Fourth Amendment's particularity] requirements are satisfied by identification of the telephone line to be tapped and the particular conversations to be seized. United States v. Donovan, 429 U.S. 413, 427 n. 15, 97 S.Ct. 658, 50 L.Ed.2d 652 (1977). Title III's particularity requirements must be distinguished from the Fourth Amendment's particularity requirements. Id. Dubose's case brings this distinction into sharp relief. Dubose does not allege that law enforcement's wiretap application violated Title III's particularity mandates, but, rather, the Fourth Amendment's. [5] In Berger v. New York , the Supreme Court invalidated New York's eavesdropping law on Fourth Amendment particularity grounds because it authorized the ex parte issuance of wiretap and bugging warrants merely on the basis of a law enforcement official's affidavit swearing that he or she had a `reasonable ground to believe that evidence of crime may be thus obtained.' 388 U.S. 41, 54, 87 S.Ct. 1873, 18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967) (quoting N.Y.Crim. Proc. Law § 813-a) (emphasis added). In its decision, the Court noted that the New York law la[id] down no requirement for particularity in the warrant as to what specific crime has been or is being committed, nor `the place to be searched,' or `the persons or things to be seized' as specifically required by the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 56, 87 S.Ct. 1873. Finally, and critically important to the present analysis, the Berger Court conceded that [i]t is true that the statute requires the naming of `the person or persons whose communications, conversations or discussions are to be overheard or recorded' but concluded that this does no more than identify the person whose constitutionally protected area is to be invaded rather than `particularly describing' the communications, conversations, or discussions to be seized. Id. at 59, 87 S.Ct. 1873. Thereafter, in United States v. Kahn , the Supreme Court concluded that  Title III requires the naming of a person in the application or interception order only when the law enforcement authorities have probable cause to believe that individual is `committing the offense' for which the wiretap is sought. 415 U.S. 143, 155, 94 S.Ct. 977, 39 L.Ed.2d 225 (1974) (emphasis added). In other words, the Supreme Court in Kahn decided, on statutory grounds, the very question that this court now considers on constitutional grounds. See id. at 150, 94 S.Ct. 977 (The question presented is simply whether the conversations that the Government wishes to introduce into evidence at the respondents' trial are made inadmissible by the `others as yet unknown language' of Judge Campbell's order or by the corresponding statutory requirements of Title III. ) (emphasis added); id. at 160, 94 S.Ct. 977 (Douglas, J., dissenting) (Whether the search would satisfy the Fourth Amendment is not before us, the decision below being based solely on the Act of Congress.). Indeed, the Kahn Court rejected the court of appeals's effort to equate a wiretap order containing the statutory, as others yet unknown language, with an unconstitutional general warrant, stating the following: The fallacy in the Court of Appeals' general warrant approach may be illustrated by examination of an analogous conventional search and seizure. If a warrant had been issued, upon a showing of probable cause, to search the Kahn residence for physical records of gambling operations [of Mr. Kahn's], there could be no question that a subsequent seizure of such records bearing Minnie Kahn's [(Mr. Kahn's wife)] handwriting would be fully lawful, despite the fact that she had not been identified in the warrant or independently investigated. In fact, as long as the property to be seized is described with sufficient specificity, even a warrant failing to name the owner of the premises at which a search is directed, while not the best practice, has been held to pass muster under the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 155 n. 15, 94 S.Ct. 977 (emphasis added). Finally, three years later, in United States v. Donovan , the Supreme Court considered, inter alia, whether 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(b)(iv), which requires the Government to include in its wiretap applications `the identity of the person, if known, committing the offense and whose communications are to be intercepted,' is satisfied when the Government identifies only the `principal targets' of the intercept. 429 U.S. 413, 416, 97 S.Ct. 658, 50 L.Ed.2d 652 (1977). The Court ultimately construed § 2518(1)(b)(iv) to require that a wiretap application . . . name an individual if the Government has probable cause to believe that the individual is engaged in the criminal activity under investigation and expects to intercept the individual's conversations over the target telephone. Id. at 428, 97 S.Ct. 658. In concluding that Title III entailed such sweeping identification requirements, the Court deduced from Title III's legislative history that the requirements set forth in the various subdivisions of § 2518(1)(b), including the identification requirement at issue here, were intended to `reflect . . . the constitutional command of particularization.' Id. at 426-27, 97 S.Ct. 658 (quoting S.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 66, at 101 (1968), reprinted in 1968 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2112, at 2190). Specifically, the Court observed that, to the extent that Congress thought it was meeting the constitutional commands of particularization established in Berger and Katz, Congress may have read those cases as mandating a broad identification requirement. Id. at 427, 97 S.Ct. 658. Nevertheless, the Court explicitly clarified in Donovan what it implicitly stated in Kahn. See supra Section II-B. Specifically, the Donovan Court wrote that, [a]t the time of the enactment of Title III, Congress did not have before it the view we expressed on this issue in United States v. Kahn, 415 U.S., at 155 n. 15, 94 S.Ct. at 984. The Fourth Amendment requires specification of the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. In the wiretap context, those requirements are satisfied by identification of the telephone line to be tapped and the particular conversations to be seized. It is not a constitutional requirement that all those likely to be overheard engaging in incriminating conversations be named. Specification of this sort identif(ies) the person whose constitutionally protected area is to be invaded rather than `particularly describing' the communications, conversations, or discussions to be seized. Berger v. New York, 388 U.S., at 59, 87 S.Ct., at 1883. Id. at 427 n. 15, 97 S.Ct. 658 (emphasis added). Thus, the Supreme Court does not treat the Fourth Amendment's particularity standards as coextensive with Title III's particularity standards. Agent Somerville's affidavit and the district court's subsequent wiretap order did not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment for lack of particularity because the Fourth Amendment requires that a wiretap application (and subsequent wiretap order) identify only the telephone line to be tapped and the particular conversations to be seized. Id. Here, as the district court recognized in its de novo review of the wiretap application proceedings, the record reflects that [the judge authorizing the wiretap order] made a finding . . . `that particular wire communications' as to certain named targets, i.e. Tyson and Gaines, and others yet unknown, concerning the described drug trafficking offenses, would be intercepted. We uphold this factual finding unless it is clearly erroneous. Garcia, 785 F.2d at 222. Under this standard, we ordinarily affirm a decision unless there is not substantial evidence to support it, it evolves from an erroneous view of the applicable law, or upon considering the entire record, we are left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made. United States v. Ross, 713 F.2d 389, 392 (8th Cir.1983). Moreover, [c]ourts must test applications for wiretaps and eavesdropping in a practical and commonsense fashion, and consequently we, as [a] reviewing court[,] must accord broad discretion to the decision to authorize wiretapping or eavesdropping. Garcia, 785 F.2d at 221-22. As the magistrate judge noted in his report and recommendation, the application requested authorization to intercept calls to and from telephone number (612) 235-8604, with `push-to-talk' number 183, assigned to a Sprint Nextel Corporation cellular telephone further identified by International Mobile Subscriber Identification (IMSI) # XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Moreover, according to the magistrate judge, [t]he application generally assert[ed] the existence of probable cause as stated with particularity in an attached affidavit of FBI Special Agent James J. Somerville. Specifically, the district court concluded as a matter of law that there was probable cause to find that such communications would concern drug trafficking. Based on the magistrate judge's factual findings concerning the contents of Agent Somerville's affidavit and the resulting wiretap orderfindings that are not clearly erroneousthe district court did not err in concluding, as a matter of law, that the affidavit and order were sufficiently particular under the Fourth Amendment. Both the affidavit and the order identified the particular telephone line to be tapped and the particular conversations (i.e., those concerning drug trafficking) to be seized. That is all the particularity that the Fourth Amendment requires.