Opinion ID: 511008
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Failure to Minimize

Text: 19 The officers who conducted the wiretap of Malekzadeh's residence intercepted numerous telephone calls between the appellant and his wife. Malekzadeh argues that the interception of marital communications indicates a failure to minimize that is fatal to the fruits of the surveillance. Malekzadeh's argument, however, confuses the failure to minimize, a substantive objection, with assertion of the marital privilege, a procedural question governed by the rules of evidence. 20 The trial court specifically found that all of the evidence in this case shows that minimization was in fact diligently followed and that only a handful of calls, some dozen or so out of hundreds were incorrectly monitored for over two minutes. And that of these that are only a second or two after the two-minute interval does not raise itself to a level of showing indifference for suppression of this entire wire. 21 The Second Circuit, in United States v. Sotomayor, 592 F.2d 1219, 1225 (2d Cir.1979), distinguished between the right of privacy and the evidentiary dimensions of wiretap regulations. The court recognized that determining whether to admit a wiretap obtained by a state officer acting pursuant to a state court order issued under a state statute required application only of those more stringent state statutory requirements designed to protect an individual's right of privacy as distinguished from procedural rules essentially evidentiary in nature. 22 When it enacted Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2510 et seq., Congress intended that states be free to impose more stringent regulations than those applicable to warrants issued by federal courts. See Sen.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1968 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 2112, 2187. The Florida wiretap legislation, codified at Fla.Stat. Sec. 934.01 et seq., demonstrates that the Florida requirements are no stricter than those imposed under Title III and, in fact, the language of the Florida statute tracks that of Title III almost exactly. Neither statute explicitly restricts interception of marital communications that otherwise comply with the statutory requirements. 23 Admission, in federal court of evidence obtained by state officers is governed by federal law. See e.g., United States v. Butera, 677 F.2d 1376 (11th Cir. 1982); United States v. Nelligan, 573 F.2d 251 (5th Cir.1978). Under federal law, the marital privilege does not protect those conversations made in furtherance of a conspiracy. United States v. Entrekin, 624 F.2d 597, 598 (5th Cir.1980). At the time of the surveillance, investigation officers believed that Mrs. Malekzadeh was involved in the conspiracy. None of the conversations was introduced at trial. Finding the trial court's application of the federal rules of evidence to the interception of marital conversations to be without error, we affirm that court's denial of the motion to suppress on this basis.