Court Opinion

ID: 9470069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:56:38.174225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:43.188253
License: Public Domain

MIKVA, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
The provisions of the D.C.Code governing the use of electronic surveillance in the District of Columbia, D.C.Code Ann. §§ 23-541 to -546 (1981), were enacted by Congress just two years after passage of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Title III of which governs the use of electronic surveillance at the federal level nationwide, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (1976 & Supp. V 1981). Both statutes prohibit the interception, disclosure, and use of wire or oral communications not specifically sanctioned by statute. Both statutes also require that applications for wiretaps be authorized by certain high-level officials before they are submitted for court approval. Under the national law — Title III — the application must be authorized by “[t]he Attorney General, or any Assistant Attorney General specially designated by the Attorney General.” Id. § 2516(1); see also United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 94 S.Ct. 1820, 40 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974). Under the D.C. law, however, only “[t]he United States attorney may authorize, in writing, any investigative or law enforcement officer to make application to a court for an order authorizing the interception of wire or oral communications.” D.C.Code Ann. § 23-546(a) (1981) (emphasis added). I cannot join my colleagues in ignoring the writing requirement that the D.C. statute imposes. The plain language utilized by Congress precludes such a result, however tempting it is to dismiss concerns about deviations from the statute in this case. Thus, I conclude that the applications for both the original wiretap and the thirty-day extension were not properly authorized; that the telephone conversations overheard during those wiretaps were “unlawfully intercepted” within the meaning of D.C.Code § 23-551(b)(1); and that the contents of those conversations, and all the evidence derived therefrom, must be suppressed. Although I agree with the majority on each of *127the other issues raised by the appellants, my separate conclusions would require that all of the appellants’ convictions be vacated and remanded to the district court for new trials excluding the tainted evidence.
The Government admits, as it must, that the United States attorney never provided written authorization for either of the disputed wiretaps, thus failing to satisfy the statutory requirements imposed by section 546(a). The question for the court is simply whether such a violation of the statute requires that the resulting evidence be suppressed under section 551(b)(1).
Under prior Supreme Court interpretations of identical language in Title III, suppression is required when the Government “fail[s] to satisfy any of those requirements that directly and substantially implement the congressional intention to limit the use of intercept procedures to those situations clearly calling for the employment of this extraordinary investigative device.” Giordano, 416 U.S. at 527, 94 S.Ct. at 1832, quoted in United States v. Donovan, 429 U.S. 413, 433-34, 97 S.Ct. 658, 671, 50 L.Ed.2d 652 (1977); United States v. Chavez, 416 U.S. 562, 575, 94 S.Ct. 1849, 1856, 40 L.Ed.2d 380 (1974). It also has been authoritatively decided that “the provision for pre-application approval was intended to play a central role in the statutory scheme and that suppression must follow when it is shown that this statutory requirement has been ignored.” Giordano, 416 U.S. at 528, 94 S.Ct. at 1832; see Chavez, 416 U.S. at 571, 94 S.Ct. at 1854 (“Congress ... made preliminary approval of submission of wiretap applications a central safeguard in preventing abuse of this means of investigative surveillance”); see also Majority opinion at 122.
The written authorization is an integral part of the approval process that serves as a prerequisite to any wiretap application under the D.C.Code. Unless a writing is executed by the United States attorney, the application is not authorized. Any other interpretation ignores the plain language of the statute, and as Justice Holmes noted in Roschen v. Ward, 279 U.S. 337, 339, 49 S.Ct. 336, 73 L.Ed. 722 (1929), “there is no canon against using common sense in construing laws as saying what they obviously mean.” Moreover, the language of section 546(a) should be contrasted with the wording of Title III, a statute that is in pari materia with the wiretapping provisions of the D.C. Code. See 2A J. Sutherland, Statutes and Statutory Construction §§ 51.02-.03 (C. Sands 4th ed. 1973); see also Erlenbaugh v. United States, 409 U.S. 239, 243-44, 93 S.Ct. 477, 480, 34 L.Ed.2d 446 (1972). To the extent that the statutes differ, those differences simply cannot be ignored by a court that undertakes to interpret either statute consistently with the language chosen by Congress. The writing requirement must be, given effect. Finally, this court has previously, recognized that some of the D.C. Code’s wiretapping “provisions are, in fact, stricter than the corresponding sections of the federal statute.” United States v. Johnson, 539 F.2d 181, 188 (D.C.Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1061, 97 S.Ct. 784, 50 L.Ed.2d 776 (1977); see S.Rep. No. 538, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. 18 (1969) (the D.C.Code does “not necessarily adopt outright or substantially verbatim the language of the procedural sections of the Federal act,” but rather “resolve[s] occasionally that which is unclear or ambiguous”). When such situations are presented, the stricter provisions of the D.C.Code must be applied.
The majority admits that fidelity to Congress’ literal language is especially important when interpreting a statute that Congress drafted “ ‘with exacting precision.’ ’ Majority opinion at 120 (quoting Donovan, 429 U.S. at 441, 97 S.Ct. at 674 (Burger, C.J., concurring)). Yet from silence in the legislative history, and from a concession by appellants’ counsel during oral argument that the United States attorney verbally authorized the applications in question, the majority decides first to separate the writing requirement from the remainder of the authorization process and then to ignore it completely. However well-intentioned the majority’s attempt to excuse the Government’s failures, it cannot do so without restructuring the statute’s plain language.
*128Equally unavailing is any attempt to compensate for the lack of written authorization by the official designated in the D.C. statute by relying on written approval from an Assistant Attorney General of the United States. Although such officials may be specially designated to authorize wiretap applications under Title III, Congress has given them no authority over wiretaps sanctioned by the D.C.Code. Rather, the local statute allows only the United States attorney, defined to include “the United States attorney for the District of Columbia or any of his assistants designated ... to act in his place for the particular purpose in question,” D.C.Code Ann. § 23-541(11) (1981), to provide written authorization for wiretap applications.
The majority does make a plausible argument that requiring the United States attorney’s authorization to be in writing is not necessary to further the procedural goals of the statute. But that is a policy decision already made by the legislature. Congress has imposed a writing requirement; it is not for the court to amend that out of the statute because it seems too meticulous.
In sum, the D.C.Code provision violated by the Government in these cases goes to the heart of the reviewing and approval functions of the statutory scheme. Without a writing, there can be no authorization from the United States attorney. Neither the oral authorization of the United States attorney nor the written approval of any Assistant Attorney General can substitute for the plain language chosen by Congress. That the appellants will be the beneficiaries of a technicality in the law is the necessary result of interpreting a technical statute the way Congress wrote it. I respectfully dissent.