Opinion ID: 107872
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: in camera proceedings.

Text: While I would hold that property owners have no right as such to hear conversations in which they were not participants, it appears to me that at a minimum the Court should adopt the Government's suggested judicial screening procedure with regard to third-party conversations. Property owners should not be permitted to intrude into the private lives of others unless a trial judge determines that the conversation at issue is at least arguably relevant to the pending prosecution. On the other hand, I would agree that in the typical case, the prosecution should be required to hand over the records of all conversations in which the accused played a part. Since the other parties to these conversations knew they were talking to the accused, they can hardly have an important interest in concealing from him what they said to him. Whatever risk of unauthorized disclosure is involved may generally be minimized even further by the issuance of appropriate protective orders. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 16 (e). There is, however, at least one class of cases in which the standard considerations do not apply. I refer to the situations exemplified by Ivanov and Butenko, in which the defendant is charged, under one statute or another, with spying for a foreign power. In contrast to the typical situation, here the accused may learn important new information even if the turnover is limited to conversations in which he was a participant. For example, he may learn the location of a listening devicea fact that may be of crucial significance in espionage work. Moreover, he will be entitled to learn this fact even though a valid warrant has subsequently been issued authorizing electronic surveillance at the same location. Similarly, the accused may find out that the United States has obtained certain information that his foreign government believes is still secret, even when our Government has also received this information from an independent source in a constitutional way. And he may learn that those in whom he has been reposing confidence are in fact American undercover agents. Even more important, there is much less reason to believe that a protective court order will effectively deter the defendant in an espionage case from turning over the new information he has received to those who are not entitled to it. For in an espionage case, the defendant is someone the grand jury has found is likely to have passed secrets to a foreign power. It is one thing to believe that the normal criminal defendant will refuse to pass on information if threatened with severe penalties for unauthorized disclosure. It is quite a different thing to believe that a defendant who is probably a spy will not pass on to the foreign power any additional information he has received. Moreover, apart from the sense of fair play of most judges, additional safeguards could be devised which would assure that an in camera procedure would be used only when an unauthorized disclosure presents a substantial risk to the national security. As in the somewhat analogous situation in which the Government attempts to invoke a national security privilege in a civil action in order to trigger an in camera proceeding, there should be a formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration by that officer. United States v. Reynolds, 345 U. S. 1, 7-8 (1953). Indeed, I would go even further than did the Court in Reynolds and lay upon trial judges the affirmative duty of assuring themselves that the national security interests claimed to justify an in camera proceeding are real and not merely colorable. The Court's failure to consider the special characteristics of the Ivanov and Butenko cases is particularly surprising in the light of the reasons it gives for creating an absolute rule in favor of an automatic turnover. For the majority properly recognizes that its preference for a full adversary hearing cannot be justified by an easy reference to an absolute principle condemning in camera judicial decisions in all situations. Indeed, this Court has expressly authorized the use of such procedures in closely related areas involving the vindication of Fourth Amendment rights. See Roviaro v. United States, 353 U. S. 53 (1957); McCray v. Illinois, 386 U. S. 300, 309-313 (1967). If, as the Court rightly states, the propriety of an in camera screening procedure is a matter of judgment, ante, at 182, depending on an informed consideration of all the competing factors, I do not understand why the trial judge should not be authorized to consider whether the accused simply cannot be trusted to keep the Government's records confidential. Nor do I understand why the Government must be confronted with the choice of dismissing the indictment or disclosing the information because the accused cannot be counted on to keep faith with the Court. [9] Moreover, it is not difficult to imagine cases in which the danger of unauthorized disclosure of important information would clearly outweigh the risk that an error may be made by the trial judge in determining whether a particular conversation is arguably relevant to the pending prosecution. It may well be, for example, that the number of conversations at issue is very small. Yet though the Court itself recognizes that the need for adversary inquiry is increased by the complexity of the issues presented for adjudication, ante, at 184, it nevertheless leaves no room for an informed decision by the trial judge that the risk of error on the facts of a given case is insubstantial. Since the number of espionage cases is small, there is no chance whatever that these decisions will be made in a hurried fashion or that they will not be subjected to the most searching scrutiny on appeal. Of course, if any of the conversations should be found arguably relevant, their disclosure should be required before the prosecution is permitted to continue. In sum, I would require the Government to turn over to Alderman and Alderisio only the records of those conversations in which each defendant participated, and I would leave the way open for a preliminary in camera screening procedure in the Ivanov and Butenko cases.