Opinion ID: 788340
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The necessity requirement

Text: 108 Appellants claim that the wiretap applications failed to make the required showing of necessity. In order to obtain a court-approved wiretap, the government must submit an application that includes, among other things, a full and complete statement as to whether or not other investigative procedures have been tried and failed or why they reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous. 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(c). Our court has adopted 109 a `common sense approach' in which the reviewing court uses a standard of reasonableness to evaluate the government's good faith effort to use alternative investigative means or its failure to do so because of danger or low probability of success. Though the wiretap should not ordinarily be the initial step in the investigation, ... law enforcement officials need not exhaust every conceivable alternative before obtaining a wiretap. 110 United States v. Canales Gomez, 358 F.3d 1221, 1225-26 (9th Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). 111 Appellants' arguments regarding the necessity requirement lack merit. Appellants first claim that the government's use of two confidential informants, CW # 1— now known to be John Turscak—and CW # 2, obviated the need for a wiretap because they were able to provide significant information regarding the activities of the Eme. We have recently rejected similar arguments under virtually identical circumstances. In Shryock, 342 F.3d at 976, the government had access to seven cooperating individuals whom we described as providing a wealth of information and evidence in an investigation of the Eme. We found that even with access to these informants, the government had been able to meet the necessity requirement: 112 [T]he Mexican Mafia is a broad-based organization with several hundred members and an unknown number of associates. Several informants—including former members of the Mexican Mafia...—could not possibly reveal the full nature and extent of the enterprise and its countless, and at times disjointed, criminal tentacles. 113 Id. (citations omitted). Our holding in Shryock is controlling here and defeats Appellants' arguments regarding the informants. See also Canales Gomez, 358 F.3d at 1226 (The government need not show that informants would be useless in order to secure a court-authorized wiretap.); United States v. McGuire, 307 F.3d 1192, 1197 (9th Cir.2002) (holding that the government had established necessity for wiretaps despite its use of three cooperating witnesses because those witnesses were able to give agents only limited information, not including the names of all members of the conspiracy). 114 Appellants also argue that the fact that the Olsen affidavits failed to disclose Fernandez's status as a federal fugitive undermines the district court's finding of necessity. We conclude, however, that this omission was not material because the inclusion of the omitted information would not have affected the district court's determination of necessity. See Meling, 47 F.3d at 1553. The Olsen affidavits pointed out that interviews and grand jury investigations of Mexican Mafia members were risky investigative techniques because they would alert the targets of the ongoing investigation. The fact that the government had the authority to arrest Fernandez and question him about his activities did not mean that it would have been able to obtain the information it gathered through the wiretaps. See Canales Gomez, 358 F.3d at 1226 (This court [has] consistently upheld findings of necessity where traditional investigative techniques lead only to the apprehension and prosecution of the main conspirators, but not to the apprehension and prosecution of ... other satellite conspirators.) (quoting McGuire, 307 F.3d at 1198). While the information regarding Fernandez's fugitive status was relevant to the necessity inquiry, the district court could reasonably have found that the wiretaps were necessary even in the presence of that information. The omission was therefore not material to the necessity inquiry. 22 115 Appellants' most compelling argument is that the generalized averments made in the Olsen affidavits as to why normal investigative techniques would not work in this case were not sufficient to establish necessity. Some aspects of the Olsen affidavits are indeed problematic in this regard, especially in light of our precedent in Blackmon, 273 F.3d at 1210, where we concluded wiretap applications that included generalized statements as to why normal investigative techniques would be unsuccessful were insufficient. We noted that the boilerplate assertions made in the affidavits at issue in that case were unsupported by specific facts relevant to the particular circumstances of [the] case and would be true of most if not all narcotics investigations. Id. Portions of the Olsen affidavits suffer from the same flaws emphasized in Blackmon: they include statements that are nothing more than a description of the inherent limitations of particular investigative techniques. Id. 23 116 In the end, however, we cannot conclude that the district court abused its discretion in finding that the Olsen affidavits satisfied the necessity requirement set out in 18 U.S.C. § 2518(1)(c). This case is distinguishable from Blackmon because our holding in that case was premised on a finding that the affidavits supporting the wiretap applications were plagued by material misrepresentations and omissions. See Blackmon, 273 F.3d at 1209-10; see also Canales Gomez, 358 F.3d at 1225 (declining to apply Blackmon because no material omissions or misstatements were alleged in that case). As we explained above, Appellants have not shown that the Olsen affidavits suffered from material misrepresentations or omissions. We therefore affirm the district court's decision not to suppress the wiretap evidence in this case. 117