Opinion ID: 2465153
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: issues

Text: The trial court was also concerned with the inventory notice provided to the subjects of the wiretap orders. Section 16-15-102(8)(d) requires the subjects of a wiretap order to be notified about the interceptions within a reasonable time, but not later than 90 days after the termination of the wiretap. Near the end of the interception period, Chief Judge Samelson granted the Deputy District Attorney additional time to provide notice due to the ongoing nature of the investigation. Nevertheless, no notice was ever given for Subject Telephone One, and the notice eventually given for Subject Telephone Two referred to Subject Telephone Four in the body of the notice. We hold that neither of these issues warranted suppression. Although the failure to provide notice to the named parties in Subject Telephone One violated the statute, in this case, the failure cannot be said to have implicated a provision that plays a substantive role with respect to the judicial authorization of the intercept order. While the notice provision is important, the failure to comply does not make an interception unlawful. Donovan, 429 U.S. at 434, 97 S.Ct. 658. The intent of the notice provision is to ensure that authorized interceptions eventually become known to the subject. Id. at 438, 97 S.Ct. 658. Here, interception on Subject Telephone One was discontinued after ten days because there was no activity to intercept. The intended subject obtained a new cellular telephone, Subject Telephone Two, and was given notice of the resulting wiretap order on that telephone. Consequently, the intended subjects of the Subject Telephone One wiretap did not suffer any prejudice by not receiving notice of the original wiretap because no calls were ever intercepted on Subject Telephone One, and the subjects were properly notified that their calls on the replacement phone had been intercepted. Therefore, the objective of the notice provision was satisfied. As to the other defect in notice, the mislabeling in the body of the notice, we note that if minor clerical errors do not invalidate a wiretap application or order, they also cannot invalidate a letter of inventory notice. The mislabeling that occurred did not prevent the notified parties from learning that their communications had been intercepted. As such, the spirit of the statute was satisfied and the parties were not prejudiced by this error. We hold that the notice issues did not warrant suppression of the evidence.