Opinion ID: 2382122
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Co-Conspiracy Defense

Text: At the post-conviction hearing, the State argued, according to the court, that the recording is admissible under Maryland law because Horn and Perry were co-conspiratorsthat the recording would be admissible against Horn because he made it and would likewise be admissible against Perry because Perry was his coconspirator and the recording was an act done in furtherance of the conspiracy. The court announced that it agrees with this argument. Citing United States v.Underhill, supra, 813 F.2d 105, the court concluded that as a member of the conspiracy with Horn, Perry is bound by the acts of his co-conspirator and may be held to have waived his right of privacy in communications made in furtherance of the purposes of the conspiracy. Apparently treating this as an application of the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule ( see Md. Rule 5-803(a)(1)), Perry responds that the co-conspirator exception applies only to communications in furtherance of the conspiracy and asserts that the conversation captured on the tape does not fall into that category. He urges (1) that if the message recorded on the tape is not the conversation that occurred at 5:12 on the morning the murders was committed, it establishes no more than that the parties had contact and is therefore not a communication in furtherance of the conspiracy, and (2) that if the recording was of the conversation that morning, it occurred after the murders had been committed, by which time the objective of the conspiracy had been accomplished and the conspiracy had ended. The State takes issue with both assertions but contends that the court was not applying the hearsay exception in any event. Rather, it treats the court's ruling as one of statutory constructionthat because Perry waived or relinquished his expectation of privacy, the exclusionary rule of the statute does not apply. We agree that the issue is one of statutory construction and does not involve the hearsay exception articulated in Md. Rule 5-803(a)(1). We disagree, however, that there is any co-conspirator exception embodied or implicit in the Maryland wiretap law. Underhill arose out of an illegal gambling operation conducted in Tennessee. Two members of the operation, Rokitka and Underhill, routinely taped telephone conversations with other members who were calling in bets, for the purpose of making a record in the event that any dispute later arose about the terms of the betting transaction. The F.B.I. seized the tapes during a search of Rokitka's apartment, and the issue arose of whether those tapes were admissible at the trial of the conspirators. The question hinged on the scope and application of the Federal wiretap law, 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq. Section 2515 provided that no part of the contents of a wire or oral communication that has been intercepted may be received in evidence if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of the Act. That section, the court said, was not self-executing, but depended on § 2518(10)(a)(i), which permitted an aggrieved person, defined as a person who was a party to any intercepted wire or oral communication or a person against whom the interception was directed, to move to suppress the contents of an intercepted communication on the ground that the interception was unlawful. The issues were (1) whether the interceptions were unlawful, and (2) if so, whether the defendants were aggrieved persons entitled to suppression. There were two classes of defendants Underhill and Rokitka, who had made the recordings, and Person, a caller whose conversations were taped without his consent. Because the recordings were made by private individuals not acting under color of law, the lawfulness issue was governed by § 2511(2)(d). That section stated that it was not unlawful for such a person to intercept a wire or oral communication when that person is a party to the communication or when one of the parties to the communication had given prior consent to the interception, unless the communication was intercepted for the purpose of committing a criminal, tortious, or other injurious act. Because the making of a gambling record violated a Tennessee statute, the taping of the conversations for the purpose of making such records was, itself, unlawful. The question, then, was whether the defendants had a basis for relief. Underhill and Rokitka, as noted, had made the recordings, and the court did not believe that it was the intent of Congress to shield the very people who committed the unlawful interceptions from the consequences of their wrongdoing, Underhill, 813 F.2d at 112. The purpose of the law, the court declared, was to provide protection to the victims of unlawful interceptions, not to the perpetrators. Id. On that premise, the court held that Underhill and Rokitka had waived their right of privacy in these communications by their deliberate act of causing them to be recorded. Id. To construe the law otherwise would produce an absurd result that could not have been intended by Congress. Person, however, argued that he neither made nor consented to the interception and that he was entitled to suppression of the tapes. Citing Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 646-48, 66 S.Ct. 1180, 1183-84, 90 L.Ed. 1489 (1946) and United States v. Bowers, 739 F.2d 1050, 1052 (6th Cir.1984), cert. denied sub nom. Oakes v. United States, 469 U.S. 861, 105 S.Ct. 195, 83 L.Ed.2d 128 (1984), the court extended the basis it had used for denying relief to Underhill and Rokitka to Person as well and held that [a]s a member of the conspiracy Person was bound by the acts of his co-conspirators and may be held to have waived his right of privacy in communications made in furtherance of the purposes of the conspiracy. Underhill, 813 F.2d at 112. It stated: Each party to a conversation takes the risk that the other party will record and divulge the contents of that conversation. Smith v. Cincinnati Post & Times Star[Times-Star], 475 F.2d 740 (6th Cir.1973); United States v. Felton, 753 F.2d 256, 259 (3rd Cir.1985). In enacting § 2511(2)(d), Congress sought to protect parties from this risk by making otherwise legal interceptions unlawful if the purpose of the interception was an act enumerated in the statute. In doing so, it did not intend to deprive prosecutors of the most cogent evidence of wrongdoing because the defendants record evidence of their crimes by intercepting communications with their confederates. Id. The rationale applied in Underhill was confirmed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Traficant v. C.I.R., 884 F.2d 258 (6th Cir.1989). See also United States v. Bragan, 499 F.2d 1376 (4th Cir.1974); United States v. Murdock, 63 F.3d 1391 (6th Cir.1995) and United States v. Nietupski, 731 F.Supp. 881 (C.D.I11.1990). Compare, however, In Re Grand Jury, 111 F.3d 1066 (3d Cir.1997). The State's and the post-conviction court's reliance on Underhill is misplaced, not because we necessarily disagree with the Sixth Circuit court's interpretation of the Federal wiretap law, although the consistency of that interpretation with some of the pronouncements in Gelbard v. United States, 408 U.S. 41, 92 S.Ct. 2357, 33 L.Ed.2d 179 (1972), appears to be a bit strained, but because, at least with respect to its holding concerning the defendant Person, it has no application to, and indeed is incompatible with, the Maryland wiretap law. The critical distinction is highlighted by the Underhill court's statement that [e]ach party to a conversation takes the risk that the other party will record and divulge the contents of that conversation. As the cases cited in Underhill illustrate, that statement emanates from the fact that, under § 2511(2)(d) of the Federal wiretap law, it is not unlawful for one party to a telephone conversation to tape and divulge the contents of the conversation, even without the knowledge or consent of the other party to the conversation, unless the taping is for an unlawful purpose. The thrust of the Federal Act is that any conversation may be recorded by a private individual unless the recording is for an unlawful purpose, and under that scheme, parties to telephone conversations really have no assurance that the conversation will not be taped and must assume the risk that it might be recorded. That is much less the case under the Maryland law. Section 10-402(a) states expressly that, except as otherwise specifically provided in this subtitle, it is unlawful for any person willfully to intercept any wire communication. [8] (Emphasis added). The requirement of a specific exception, which also appears in the Federal Act, assumes a greater significance because of the State-law requirement of allparty consent. The thrust of the State law is that no conversation may be willfully taped unless specifically allowed, and the only provision that would allow a private person, not acting as a government agent, in conformance with a court order, or as an employee of a communication company, to intercept a wire communication is § 10-402(c)(3), which states: It is lawful under this subtitle for a person to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where the person is a party to the communication and where all of the parties to the communication have given prior consent to the interception unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States or of this State. (Emphasis added). As we pointed out in Mustafa v. State, supra, 323 Md. at 74, 591 A.2d at 485, [t]he two-party consent provision of the Maryland Act is aimed at providing greater protection for the privacy interest in communications than the federal law. The requirement of consent by all parties for the recording of a telephone conversation by a private individual has been a fundamental part of Maryland law since at least 1956, and the one attempt by the Legislature, in 1973, to modify that provision met with a veto in which the Governor expressed his deep concern that the opportunity for unwarranted spying and intrusions on people's privacy authorized by this bill is frightening. See 1973 Md. Laws, Vol. II, at 1925. [9] Under long-standing Maryland law, therefore, a party to a telephone conversation does not take the risk that another party, not acting as, or under the direction of, a government agent, will record and divulge the contents of the conversation, for, absent the prior consent of the party, such recording and divulging is clearly prohibited and, indeed, if done willfully, constitutes a criminal offense. Given that prohibition, participants in a telephone conversation may ordinarily rely on the fact that their conversation will not be surreptitiously recorded or, at the very least, that, unless done in strict conformance with the State law, a recording of their conversation will not be admitted into evidence in any Maryland court. Without commenting on whether one who unlawfully tapes a conversation can seek the protection of the exclusionary rule embodied in the Maryland statute an issue that is not before us in this case we find nothing in the Maryland wiretap law, either in its wording or in its legislative history, suggesting an intent by the Legislature to preclude any other party to an intercepted conversation from invoking the exclusionary rule on the ground that he/she is a co-conspirator with the person who unlawfully recorded the conversation. Any exception that would make an interception lawful or that would preclude an aggrieved person from moving to suppress an unlawful interception must be specifically provided for in the Act, and we find no specific exception for co-conspirators. Thus, although conspirators are generally bound by the acts and statements of their co-conspirators, done or made in furtherance of the conspiracy, there is no basis for concluding that an otherwise aggrieved personin this instance one whose conversation is taped without his consentloses his right to suppress the tape merely because the taping is done by a co-conspirator. See State v. Maddox, 69 Md.App. 296, 300-01, 517 A.2d 370, 372 (1986). It is interesting to note that, 40 years ago, we declined to follow a Supreme Court decision, Rathbun v. United States, 355 U.S. 107, 78 S.Ct. 161, 2 L.Ed.2d 134 (1957), that allowed the admission of unconsented-to eavesdrop evidence under the more liberal Federal wiretap law then in existence. See Robert v. State, 220 Md. 159, 151 A.2d 737 (1958) (holding inadmissible under Maryland law the testimony of police officers who listened on an extension telephone to a conversation between the defendant and his daughter without the defendant's knowledge or consent). We declared in that case that [t]he terms of our statute as to obtaining the contents of a telephonic communication and as to the consent of all participants are so different from the language of the Federal Act that we think that the Rathbun case is inapplicable. Id. at 171, 151 A.2d at 743. That remains the case today. We therefore hold that the post-conviction court erred in finding the exhibits and testimony admissible under some implied co-conspirator exception.