Court Opinion

ID: 9463193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:00:36.395629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:58.710556
License: Public Domain

DUNIWAY, Circuit Judge
(concurring):
I concur in the judgment of affirmance, but for a different reason from those stated in Judge Choy’s opinion. In my opinion, we need not reach the question of whether the arrest and the search of Hall’s purse were illegal because based upon wiretap information which could not be used by state officers. Hall does not have standing to raise the issue.
At the suppression hearing, Agent Reyes, the federal agent who conducted the tap, testified as follows [RT, Vol. 7, pp. 57-70]: Four telephone calls bearing on this case were intercepted. Three were between one Cooper, the driver of the car in which Hall was arrested, and one Sandra Woodrow; the fourth was between a John Lewis and Sandra Woodrow. Hall’s telephone was not tapped; no conversation in which she participated was intercepted.
*1236Agent Miller, the Field Supervisor of the State Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement who led the arresting officers, testified that he received a phone call from Federal Agent Reyes telling him that based on a federal wiretap [RT 38], Reyes had reason to believe that one Cooper and an unidentified woman, who were traveling north on highway 99 in the vicinity of Fresno, were transporting substantial amounts of heroin and cocaine. Reyes asked Miller “to make an intercept.” [RT 59] When the car was located, a surveillance was set up involving six or seven state cars. [RT 16] Cooper pulled into a gas station. The state vehicles deployed around the station, with red lights flashing, and two agents approached the Cooper car. [RT 17] When Cooper saw the agents, he jerked the car into gear and tried to speed away. His car only went ten feet, however, before it smashed into one of the state cars. [RT 17, 19] Miller asked both Cooper and the woman to get out. At that point Miller saw a purse lying partially open on the floor of the front seat. In the purse he saw a brown paper sack. [RT 19-20, 43-44] While reaching over to pick up the purse, but before actually touching it, Miller smelled a distinct acetic acid odor coming from the purse. [RT 20, 31, 43] Miller, trained and experienced in the detection of heroin, knew that this smell is generally associated with heroin. [RT 20-21, 22, 24, 31-33, 47-48] He opened the purse, took out the bag, opened the bag, and found that it contained heroin, among other things. He arrested both Cooper and the woman, who is Hall, on a state charge of felonious possession of heroin and cocaine. [RT 49]
Hall’s argument is that the heroin should be suppressed. Her argument involves a series of contentions: (1) even though the wiretap was valid under federal law, the California officers could not use it; (2) therefore, Reyes, the federal officer, violated 18 U.S.C. § 2517 when he disclosed information obtained by the tap to the state officers; (3) therefore, the stop, the search, and arrest by the state officers were tainted by their knowledge of facts learned from the tap; (4) therefore, the heroin should be suppressed as fruit of a tree which, though non-poisonous under federal law, is poisonous under state law.
It is a long standing rule in the federal courts that a person seeking to challenge the introduction of evidence on the ground that it was seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment must be a party against whom the search is directed. In Jones v. United States, 1960, 362 U.S. 257, 261, 80 S.Ct. 725, 731, 4 L.Ed.2d 697, the Supreme Court held that:
In order to qualify as a “person aggrieved by an unlawful search and seizure” one must have been a victim of a search or seizure, one against whom the search was directed, as distinguished from one who claims prejudice only through the use of evidence gathered as a consequence of a search or seizure directed at someone else.
This doctrine has been more recently reiterated in Brown v. United States, 1973, 411 U.S. 223, 229, 93 S.Ct. 1565, 36 L.Ed.2d 208, and, as a constitutional matter, has been specifically applied to challenges against wiretap evidence in Alderman v. United States, 1967, 394 U.S. 165, 171-76, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176.
As we have seen, however, Hall’s argument does not rest upon the Fourth Amendment, but on a claim that it was a violation of Title III of the federal Omnibus Crime Control Act, and particularly § 2517, to disclose the fruits of the wiretap to state officers. Thus, the question we must confront is whether the standing principles of Jones, Alderman, and Brown which apply in cases involving constitutional challenges also apply in cases where the challenge is founded in Title III. I conclude that they do.
The cases which hold that only the targets of an unconstitutional search have standing to raise the issue of its validity rest on the notion that other persons are not “aggrieved” within the meaning of F.R. Crim.P., Rule 41(e). The only language in Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control Act which confers standing on anyone to raise *1237the issue of violation of the Act appears in 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a), which reads:
Any aggrieved person . . . may move to suppress the contents of any intercepted wire or oral communication, or evidence derived therefrom, on the grounds that—
(i) the communication was unlawfully intercepted;
(ii) the order of authorization or approval under which it was intercepted is insufficient on its face; or
(iii) the interception was not made in conformity with the order of authorization or approval.
(emphasis added)
The Supreme Court, referring to the legislative history of Title III, has noted that the standing requirements of Title III are the same as the existing standards for cases involving constitutional challenges. Aiderman v. United States, supra, 394 U.S. at 175-76 n.9, 89 S.Ct. 961. See Senate Report No. 1097, 2 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News, pp. 2112, 2185 (1968). Various circuits have since held that anyone who challenges the validity of a search under Title III must either have been a party to the intercepted communication or the “owner” of the phone that was tapped. United States v. Scasino, 5 Cir., 1975, 513 F.2d 47, 50-51; United States v. Capra, 2 Cir., 1974, 501 F.2d 267, 281. And see United States v. O’Neill, 6 Cir., 1974, 497 F.2d 1020, 1025.
It is no answer to say that this rule does not apply to Hall because she is complaining about a violation of state law, not of Title III. Before Hall can successfully move to suppress evidence in a federal court, she must have a federal basis for doing so. The only federal justification in this case is that § 2517 forbids disclosure of wiretap information to state officers unless use of such information would be “appropriate to the proper performance of [their — i. e., the state officers’] official duties.” This, Hall argues, incorporates the state law. Her point, however, rests on a challenge based upon Title III, and thus she must meet the standing requirements of that title. Section 2518(10)(a), supra, requires that she be “aggrieved” when she moved to suppress “evidence derived” from the contents of an intercepted communication. Use of the evidence against her does not make her an “aggrieved” person. She must have been a victim of the interception. Jones v. United States, supra. She was not.
For the reasons stated, I concur in the judgment of affirmance.
BROWNING, Circuit Judge, concurs in the foregoing opinion.