Opinion ID: 655893
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the wiretaps

Text: 6 Appellants challenge the district court's denial of their motions to suppress evidence obtained from the Barron and Castaneda family wiretaps. We review the district court's authorization of a wiretap for abuse of discretion. United States v. Echavarria-Olarte, 904 F.2d 1391, 1395 (9th Cir.1990). 7 A federal wiretap may be authorized when the issuing judge determines that normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or [appear] to be too dangerous. 18 U.S.C. § 2518(3)(c). The question of whether an affidavit has demonstrated that the wiretap is necessary to the success of an investigation is to be answered in a practical and common sense fashion. United States v. Brown, 761 F.2d 1272, 1275 (9th Cir.1985). A district court's judgment that an affidavit has shown the requisite necessity is also reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Brown, 951 F.2d 999, 1002 (9th Cir.1991). 8 In regard to the Barron wiretap, we affirm the district court for the reasons stated in its order denying the motion to suppress. We also affirm the district court's decision that the 30-day extension of the Barron wiretap was necessary. The application for the extension stated that while several participants in Barron's organization had been identified, Barron had other unidentified suppliers. Also, the location of the stash houses and the profits from the operation were unknown. (Angulo-Lopez ER 183-85, 187-88, 192-200) When normal investigative procedures can lead to the successful development of evidence against some, but not all, members of a narcotics conspiracy, necessity will still exist. United States v. Torres, 908 F.2d 1417, 1422 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 948 (1990). 9 Umansor-Alvarez argues that the affidavit in support of the Castaneda family wiretap did not establish necessity, but instead contained generalized statements about the difficulty of investigating drug trafficking conspiracies. Although the district court observed that the affidavit was not a model of specificity (Angulo-Lopez ER at 73), it also concluded that the affidavit established that recent arrests had made targeted individuals unreceptive to new contacts by undercover agents, that undercover buys had failed to produce sufficient evidence against Uriel or to learn the scope of his organization, and that counter-surveillance was hindering the investigation. (ER at 73-74) This was sufficient. See United States v. Spagnuolo, 549 F.2d 705, 710 (9th Cir.1977). 10 Umansor-Alvarez also asserts that the affidavit for the Castaneda family wiretap was not supported by probable cause. Probable cause for a wiretap requires a reasonable belief that: 1) an individual is committing certain offenses; 2) relevant communications will be intercepted by a wiretap; and 3) the targeted person will use the targeted facility. See 18 U.S.C. § 2518; Brown, 761 F.2d at 1275. The affidavit summarized the coded conversations between Barron and Uriel which were intercepted as a result of the Barron wiretap. (p 8-17, 33). The affidavit also provided substantial information about specific drug transactions involving Uriel. It was reasonable for the issuing judge to conclude that there was a substantial basis for believing these coded conversations pertained to drugs and that probable cause existed for the wiretap (OR at 79). We affirm the district court's denial of Umansor-Alvarez's motion to suppress.