Opinion ID: 2808903
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Phone Call Statements

Text: On September 13, 2013, Bouie moved to suppress the phone call statements he made from the Central Regional Jail, which were recorded by jail authorities. The circuit court denied Bouie’s motion in its pretrial order of March 12, 2014. Pursuant to West Virginia Code § 31-20-5e (2002), jails are permitted to “monitor, intercept, record and disclose” non-privileged telephone calls placed or received by inmates, although the statute requires, inter alia, that “[n]otice shall be prominently placed on or immediately near every telephone that may be monitored.” Id. § 31-20-5e(3). The circuit court recounted that the jail had implemented procedures to ensure that conforming laminated notices were prominently displayed and remained so, although “no testimony was provided that a notice was up at the exact phone used by [Bouie] at the specific time and date when the calls were made.” Notwithstanding the lack of iron-clad certitude, the circuit court found “that notices were prominently displayed during [Bouie’s] calls.” Moreover, when the phone calls were played at trial for the jury, each was clearly prefaced with an oral warning that the call was subject to monitoring and recordation. It is therefore plain that Bouie was presented with actual 16 notice in advance of making the inculpatory statements that anything he might say on the prison phones would be monitored and recorded. Bouie ignored the warnings at his own peril. Under exceedingly similar circumstances, we determined in State v.