Court Opinion

ID: 9454095
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:36:06.68921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:58.193065
License: Public Domain

FEINBERG, Circuit Judge
(concurring) :
In 1958, when the wiretap in this case occurred and the information thereby obtained was disclosed, the controlling decision was Schwartz v. Texas, 344 U.S. 199, 73 S.Ct. 232, 97 L.Ed. 231 (1952). Under that case, wiretap evidence obtained by local police officials in violation of 47 U.S.C. § 605 could be introduced against a defendant in a state criminal trial and this court could not interfere. See Pugach v. Dollinger, 365 U.S. 458, 81 S.Ct. 650, 5 L.Ed.2d 678 (1961), aff’g 277 F.2d 739 (2d Cir. 1960). According to the Supreme Court in Benanti v. United States, 355 U.S. 96, 101, 78 S.Ct. 155, 2 L.Ed.2d 126 (1957), the rationale of Schwartz v. Texas was
that despite the plain prohibition of Section 605, due regard to federal-state relations precluded the conclusion that Congress intended to thwart a state rule of evidence in the absence of a clear indication to that effect.
The resulting clash between state law enforcement officers and federal law has been described as
an absolute impasse going so far as to be almost ludicrous if the issue were not so fundamentally serious.
See Pugach v. Dollinger, 277 F.2d 739, 747 (2d Cir. 1960) (Clark, J., dissenting), aff’d, Pugach v. Dollinger, supra. And until recently that was the state of the law, however much some of us might have disagreed with it. See United States ex rel. Rosado v. Flood, 394 F.2d 139, 141 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 855, 89 S.Ct. 111, 21 L.Ed.2d 124 (U.S. Oct. 15, 1968).
Earlier this year, Lee v. Florida, 392 U.S. 378, 88 S.Ct. 2096, 20 L.Ed.2d 1166 (1968), overruled Schwartz v. Texas, supra. More recently, Lee v. Florida was held to be prospective only. Fuller v. Alaska, 393 U.S. 80, 89 S.Ct. 61, 21 L.Ed.2d 212 (U.S. Oct. 28, 1968). These new developments are not directly dis-positive of the principal issue before us, which is whether Guido has the right to recover damages from local police officials or their governmental employers for the use in 1958 of wiretap evidence. However, they lend support to my basic view on how properly to deal with the civil liability alleged here, growing out of the prior chaotic state of the law. Since section 605 was being construed by the Court in 1958 to allow these defendants to introduce such evidence against Guido, it does not make sense to me ten years later to construe the same section as then simultaneously subjecting defendants to liability for damages to Guido for doing so.
On that basis, I concur. I express no view as to the proper elements of damage in Guido’s action.