Opinion ID: 496185
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Denial of the Motions to Suppress the Lewisburg Tapes

Text: 15 Abbamonte and Paradiso argue that the district court erred in denying defendants' motion to suppress the Lewisburg tapes. They contend that recording the telephone conversations violated Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2510-20, and the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Abbamonte also maintains that the inadvertent destruction of some of the Lewisburg tapes should lead to the suppression of the rest. The Government argues that Title III procedures do not apply to prison conversations and that there is no Fourth Amendment privacy interest preventing security-motivated interception of telephone conversations made at Lewisburg. The Government also maintains that even if Title III applies to prison communications, under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2511(2)(c) it is not unlawful for a person acting under color of law to intercept a wire or oral communication, where ... one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception. 16 Title III clearly applies to prison monitoring. United States v. Paul, 614 F.2d 115, 117 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 941, 100 S.Ct. 2165, 64 L.Ed.2d 796 (1980); Campiti v. Walonis, 611 F.2d 387, 392 (1st Cir.1979); Crooker v. United States Dep't of Justice, 497 F.Supp. 500, 502 (D.Conn.1980); see also United States v. Figueroa, 757 F.2d 466, 472 (2d Cir.1985) (assuming Title III procedures for wiretap orders apply to prison surveillance). However, we agree with the Government that the monitoring in this case fell within the consent exception to Title III. 1 The legislative history shows that Congress intended the consent requirement to be construed broadly. The Senate Report specifically says in relation to section 2511(2)(c): Consent may be expressed or implied. Surveillance devices in banks or apartment houses for institutional or personal protection would be impliedly consented to. S.Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1968 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 2112, 2182. Indeed, the Senate Report cites a line of cases allowing recording or eavesdropping by government agents or informers who were parties to a conversation or who are allowed to listen by explicit consent of a party to the conversation. Id. (citing Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 83 S.Ct. 1381, 10 L.Ed.2d 462 (1963); Rathbun v. United States, 355 U.S. 107, 78 S.Ct. 161, 2 L.Ed.2d 134 (1957); On Lee v. United States, 343 U.S. 747, 72 S.Ct. 967, 96 L.Ed. 1270 (1952)). 17 Here we imply consent in fact from surrounding circumstances indicating that the appellants knowingly agreed to the surveillance. See United States v. Rantz, No. 85-40036-04, slip op. at 9 (D.Kan. Sept. 30, 1985) (available on WESTLAW, DCT database); but see Watkins v. L.M. Berry & Co., 704 F.2d 577, 581 (11th Cir.1983) (use of telephone with knowledge of capability of monitoring not implied consent where participant told personal calls not monitored except to extent necessary to determine whether call is personal or business); Campiti v. Walonis, 611 F.2d at 393-94 (use of telephone did not constitute implied consent where participants unaware that call was monitored and no regulations or notices informed inmates that calls might be monitored); Jandak v. Village of Brookfield, 520 F.Supp. 815, 820 n. 5 (N.D.Ill.1981) (consent cannot be implied in law where participant did not but reasonably should have known that line was monitored); Crooker v. United States Dep't of Justice, 497 F.Supp. at 503 (knowledge of monitoring not sufficient to establish consent). 18 Paradiso and Abbamonte impliedly consented to the interception of their telephone calls by use of the prison telephones. They were on notice of the prison's interception policy from at least four sources. The Code of Federal Regulations 2 provides public notice of the possibility of monitoring. In addition, inmates receive actual notice. First, upon first arriving at Lewisburg and upon returning to the institution after an absence of nine months or more, each inmate must attend an admission and orientation lecture in which the monitoring and taping system is discussed. Second, every inmate at Lewisburg receives a copy of The Inmate Informational Handbook which as of September 1984 contained the following notice about the taping system: 19 Telephones at the United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg are located in each housing unit and are turned on every other day on a rotating basis. The phones are in operation Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM until 11:15 PM, excluding counts; on weekends and holidays from 8:15 AM until 11:15 PM, excluding counts. These phones utilized by the inmates are MONITORED and TAPED as well as having the capibility [sic] for VISUAL TAPING. 20 Handbook at 9 (Sept. 1984 ed.) (capitalization in original). Third, notices were placed on each telephone, stating in English and Spanish the following: NOTICE 21 The Bureau of Prisons reserves the authority to monitor conversations on this telephone. Your use of institutional telephones constitutes consent to this monitoring. A properly placed telephone call to an attorney is not monitored. 22 See Figueroa, 757 F.2d at 472, 474 (sign over telephone notified prisoners that calls might be monitored). 23 Evidence indicated appellants received actual notice of the monitoring and taping process. When Abbamonte returned to Lewisburg on October 16, 1984, after being incarcerated at Danbury, he attended an admissions and orientation lecture and received a copy of The Inmate Informational Handbook. Moreover, prison records indicate that on October 8, 1984, Paradiso's case manager presented him with a form containing the written notice of the monitoring and taping system, which Paradiso refused to sign. 24 Thus, the district court properly found that the two defendants had notice of the interception system and that their use of the telephones therefore constituted implied consent to the monitoring. United States v. Vasta, 649 F.Supp. at 990 n. 2. 25 Appellants' argument that taping their conversations violated the Fourth Amendment is also not compelling. As the Supreme Court construes the Fourth Amendment, prison inmates have no reasonable expectation of privacy. See Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 527-28, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3200-01, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984); United States v. Cohen, 796 F.2d 20, 22-23 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 107 S.Ct. 189, 93 L.Ed.2d 122 (1986). In the prison context the reasonableness of a search is directly related to legitimate concerns for institutional security. See Block v. Rutherford, 468 U.S. 576, 588, 104 S.Ct. 3227, 3233, 82 L.Ed.2d 438 (1984); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 559, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1884, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979). If security concerns can justify strip and body-cavity searches, see Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. at 558-60, 99 S.Ct. at 1883; Weber v. Dell, 804 F.2d 796, 802 (2d Cir.1986), and wholly random cell searches, see Block v. Rutherford, 468 U.S. at 589-91, 104 S.Ct. at 3234-35; Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. at 530, 104 S.Ct. at 3202, then surely it is reasonable to monitor prisoners' telephone conversations, particularly where they are told that the conversations are being monitored. See United States v. Roy, 734 F.2d 108, 111 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1110, 106 S.Ct. 1520, 89 L.Ed.2d 918 (1986) (legitimate privacy expectations severely curtailed during incarceration); Christman v. Skinner, 468 F.2d 723, 726 (2d Cir.1972) (monitoring detainees' conversation with visitors not violative of privacy right). 26 Nor was the district court in error when it held that sanctions should not be imposed on the Government because a government agent inadvertently destroyed twenty-seven of the approximately 253 Lewisburg tapes. The district court's finding of negligence, as opposed to wilfulness, is fully supported by the record. When pursuant to subpoena prison officials turned over approximately 253 tapes, a DEA agent provided the officials with blank replacement tapes. When the replacement tapes proved defective, the agent returned twenty-seven of the original tapes produced under but not covered by the subpoena. The Government concedes that at least some of the twenty-seven returned tapes probably contained conversations involving appellants and thus were subject to discovery under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(1)(A). The appropriateness and extent of sanctions therefore depends, as we held in United States v. Grammatikos, 633 F.2d 1013 (2d Cir.1980), upon a case-by-case assessment of the government's culpability for the loss, together with a realistic appraisal of its significance when viewed in light of its nature, its bearing upon critical issues in the case and the strength of the government's untainted proof. Id. at 1019-20. The district court found that the Government did not act deliberately or in bad faith. United States v. Vasta, 649 F.Supp. at 993. Asserting that it is most difficult for us to imagine how the lost recordings could be helpful to defendants, id., the court found no significant prejudice. We do not quarrel with that finding. 27