Court Opinion

ID: 9759469
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:17:39.675392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:02.122938
License: Public Domain

Sidor, J.
(dissenting). I agree that United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 94 S. Ct. 1820, 40 L. Ed. 2d 341, holds that the statute was intended to require suppression where there is a failure to satisfy any of those statutory requirements that directly and substantially implement the legislative intention to limit the use of intercept procedures to those situations clearly calling for the employment of this extraordinary investigative device. The United States Supreme Court notes that this is so where the 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. Id., 528, 529. The central role in our statutory scheme is the limited number of intercepts permitted, and the required hearing before a three-judge panel of the Superior Court judges.
The applications in question cannot be said to ignore the statutory requirement. It is not questioned that the state’s attorney executed the application form. Nor is it questioned that he acknowledged the same. These facts show that there was no intent to ignore the requirement of the statute. The substance was there. The prepared form was incorrect. A state’s attorney is a public officer; as such he takes an oath of office. A public officer’s oath is specific. General Statutes § 1-25.
*28There is no provision for the form of the oath required in General Statutes § 54-41c. There are model forms in § 1-25 of the General Statutes. Section 54-41c is not helpful to one who must administer an oath under its provisions. Those delegated to draft the application form for the state’s attorneys must have found a model in § 1-34 of the General Statutes.
I see no attempt to deceive; nor do I see prejudice to the rights of an accused. The state has made a good faith effort to comply with the statute. As a matter of practice, a state’s attorney is available at all wiretap application hearings to implement the application in accordance with § 54-41c (12). Federal judges under 18 U.S.C. § 2518 have used a similar section to take additional evidence to satisfy themselves that a wire intercept order should issue. See United States v. Florea, 541 F.2d 568 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 945, 97 S. Ct. 1579, 51 L. Ed. 2d 792.
Section 54-41c requires, in its subsections 1 through 12, many statements to be included in the application. The application requires “allegations of fact” which may be based either upon the personal knowledge of the applicant or upon information and belief. Statements and allegations of fact do not constitute an affidavit. I cannot agree that the requirement of an oath directly and substantially implements the legislative intention to limit the use of intercept procedures. I would require the legislature to be more specific as to the contents of an affidavit.
We find the requirement of an oath in many situations. We have not set aside actions for failure to *29take an oath to prevent a failure of public justice. See Berger v. Guilford, 136 Conn. 71, 82, 68 A.2d 371.
I would reverse the action of the trial court.