Court Opinion

ID: 9461599
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:18:45.236772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:09.194358
License: Public Domain

ENGEL, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
While I agree that the district court properly suppressed the wiretap evidence as to defendants Donovan, Robbins and Buzzacco for the reasons stated in the majority opinion, I respectfully dissent from so much thereof as affirms the suppression of the wiretap evidence against defendants Merlo and Lauer because of violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2518(8)(d). I would reverse and remand for reconsideration in the light of United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 94 S.Ct. 1820, 40 L.Ed.2d 341 (1974); United States v. Chavez, 416 U.S. 562, 94 S.Ct. 1849, 40 L.Ed.2d 380 (1974) and certain guidelines which I believe this court should establish in the interpretation of the inventory notice provisions of the statute.

The Factual Background

Merlo and Lauer were not named in the wiretap applications, and their identity was not known at the time application for the interception was made on November 28, 1972, or when a continuation was approved on December 26, 1972. According to the testimony of Special Attorney Edwin J. Gale, twelve telephone conversations placed from the apartment under surveillance and received by Merlo and Lauer were intercepted between December 9, 1972 and January 3, 1973. On January 13, 1973, pursuant to a search warrant, a search was conducted by the FBI of the premises at 21 Olive Street, Akron, Ohio in the presence of both defendants. Evidence was seized as a result of the search and inventories thereof were filed and served, at least upon Merlo. Statements made by Merlo and Lauer at that time indicated that they had answered telephones located in the Olive Street apartment and that Merlo had employed Lauer as a phone man.
The defendants assert in their brief that “the contents of these intercepted communications (phone calls from the telephones under surveillance to Merlo and Lauer) were submitted by the government as probable cause for a search of the defendant’s apartment on January 13, 1973.” This assertion by defendants is not supported by the record, is denied by the government, and is not a fact found by the trial court. On the contrary, while the activities of Merlo and Lauer were unquestionably known to federal authorities from some time prior to January 13, 1973, the only evidence on the record indicating the date when the conclusion was reached that it was Merlo and Lauer who were parties to the twelve interceptions comes from the testimony of Special Attorney Gale, who placed the time as “late summer of 1973. Perhaps late August.”
No -inventory notice was ever served on either defendant. A sealed indictment naming both Merlo and Lauer as defendants was filed on November 1, 1973 and was unsealed November 6. On December 17, 1973 transcripts of the twelve interceptions were furnished by the government in response to a request by defendants. On January 17, 1973 District Judge Robert Krupansky sup*345pressed the evidence, and on the following day entered an order severing the trials of Merlo, Lauer and the other ap-pellees herein from that of the remainder of the defendants, thus paving the way for this interlocutory appeal upon certification by the government pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731.

Suppression Under the Statute

The appeal from the district court’s suppression of the wiretap evidence presents the issue of whether failure to serve upon those defendants post-interception inventory notice violates the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2518(8)(d), and if so, whether the violation requires suppression under 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a). In the words of United States v. Kahn, 415 U.S. 143, 94 S.Ct. 977, 39 L.Ed.2d 225 (1974), “ . . . the starting point, as in all statutory construction, is the precise wording chosen by Congress in enacting Title III.” 415 U.S. at 151, 94 S.Ct. at 982.
Subsection (8)(d) of Section 2518 provides that the issuing judge “shall cause to be served, on the persons named in the order or the application, and such other parties to intercepted communications as the judge may determine in his discretion that is in the interest of justice, an inventory . . ..” Under the statute, therefore, it was within the discretion of the judge to cause an inventory to be served upon Merlo and Lauer as “such other parties to intercepted communications.” Since the judge will have no independent information and must depend upon the government to disclose the names of such other persons, I agree with the majority that the government, therefore, should have a duty on its own initiative to disclose to the judge the names of such persons known to it, even though such duty is not spelled out in the statute. See United States v. Chun, 503 F.2d 533, 540 (9th Cir. 1974). I depart from the majority, however, when it holds in effect that a violation of the judicially created duty calls for suppression without regard to whether it was the result of a deliberate flouting of the statute, United States v. Eastman, 465 F.2d 1057 (3rd Cir. 1972) or an inadvertent error, United States v. Wolk, 466 F.2d 1143 (8th Cir. 1972), or whether there was actual prejudice to the defendants by reason thereof. ' Such a construction of the statute, in my view, goes well beyond United States v. Chun, supra, runs counter to standards for suppression set forth in Giordano and Chavez, and is similar to the overly restrictive approach to statutory interpretation which was rejected in United States v. Kahn, supra.
Chavez and Giordano set out the standards for suppression under 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(i). As noted by the court in Chavez, Giordano “did not go so far as to suggest that every failure to comply fully with any requirement provided in Title III would render the interception of wire or oral communications ‘unlawful’.” Chavez, supra, 416 U.S. at 574, 575, 94 S.Ct. at 1856. Rather, the court in Giordano noted: “ . Congress intended to require suppression where there is a failure to satisfy any of those statutory 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.” (emphasis added) Giordano, supra, 416 U.S. at 527, 94 S.Ct. at 1832.
In considering whether we should apply the suppression provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(a)(i) to violations of the post-interception inventory notice provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 2518(8)(d), it is necessary to recognize that since the interception has already occurred, the service of inventory afterward has little, if anything to do with deterring improper initial resort to the procedure. The language “ ‘unlawfully intercepted’ must be ‘stretched’ ” to include failures of conditions subsequent to a valid authorization and execution, Chun, supra, 503 F.2d at 542, n.18. It is, therefore, difficult enough for me to conclude that the inventory notice provisions were intended to play a “central role” in “limiting the use of intercept procedures” where the *346statute specifically requires notice; it is even more difficult where notice is made discretionary and the alleged violation is not even mentioned in the statute. Nevertheless, a judicial interpretation of the statute which imposes a duty on the government to disclose to the judge the names of persons later identified as parties to intercepted communications is reasonable, consistent with the needs of the judge if he is to exercise his statutory discretion and in keeping with the spirit and intent of the Act. 1968 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News, p. 2184. See also Commentary to Standard No. 5.15, tentative draft of American Bar Association Minimum Standards for Criminal Justice for Electronic Surveillances, proposed June 1968, at pages 161-162.
I agree that if the duty created is to have any meaning, it is reasonable to attach consequences to its violation which discourage abuse and protect against resulting injury. I do not agree, that the language of the statute compels suppression as the invariable judicial vehicle of enforcement. I would limit suppression to those instances in which the government’s violation was shown to be deliberate or where, if not deliberate, there is a showing of actual prejudice which cannot be cured by less drastic remedies such as compelling later disclosure or by permitting, in the words of Chun, “a reasonable opportunity to prepare an adequate response to the evidence which has been derived from the interception.” Chun, supra, 503 F.2d at 538.
The facts in this case, and indeed in most reported cases involving widespread organized crime, readily illustrate the complexity of investigations which frequently involve not only different investigative agencies of the federal government, but state law enforcement agencies as well. See e. g., United States v. Cirillo, 499 F.2d 872 (2nd Cir. 1974), cert. denied 419 U.S. 1056, 95 S.Ct. 638, 42 L.Ed.2d 653. The knowledge of one law enforcement officer, or of even a single agency, can rarely be expected to encompass the knowledge of the whole. The identification of parties to telephone conversations by voice is difficult at best. It is infinitely more difficult when the parties are guarded in their remarks, or refer to one another by code name or nickname. Unless the Constitution or the express language of the statute commands otherwise, I believe we are obliged to construe the governmental duty consistently with the dual objectives of the Act:
“To be sure, Congress was concerned with protecting individual privacy when it enacted this statute. But it is also clear that Congress intended to authorize electronic surveillance as a weapon against the operations of organized crime.” (Footnote omitted) United States v. Kahn, supra, 415 U.S. at 151, 94 S.Ct. at 982.
If the foregoing guidelines are applied here, the decision of the district court cannot stand upon the record made and upon the limited findings of the district court.
There is nothing in the record here to suggest that the failure to notify the issuing judge of the names of Merlo and Lauer was anything but inadvertent. Notice was given not only to 37 persons by court order of February 21, 1973, but to two additional persons on September 11, 1973. This itself is a strong indication that the government was not indifferent to its obligations to make later disclosure. No tactical advantage to the government is even suggested in view of the widespread disclosure to others allegedly involved in the conspiracy.
Likewise, I view any possibility of actual prejudice highly doubtful upon the record here. “The majority concludes, erroneously I think, that ‘This finding demonstrates to our satisfaction that the District Court has considered and decided the issue of actual notice’ ”. Actually the record shows only that the inventory notice was never sent them, and the district court finding is limited to the observation of “the government’s admission that defendants Merlo and Lauer were not served with inventories pursuant to the Act or otherwise notified that they have been intercepted”. I do not con-*347elude from this finding, however, that the district judge found, or the facts revealed, that the defendants had no prior actual knowledge whatever of the interceptions. Thirty-nine of the alleged participants had already been formally notified. Because of the January search of their apartment, Merlo and Lauer already knew in the most concrete terms that their activities, and in particular telephone activities, were under FBI scrutiny. They may not have had direct or indirect notice from the government, but it challenges credulity to conclude therefrom that they did not have some actual knowledge of the interceptions.
The duty to notify Merlo and Lauer arose in late August when, according to Gale, their identity was first known. They were then, in the discretion of the judge, entitled to an inventory, including notice of the facts and dates described in 18 U.S.C. § 2518(8)(d)(l), (2) and (3). This information does not, however, necessarily include either transcripts of the tapes themselves or even the dates or particulars of individual conversations. As indicated earlier, indictment followed about two months later, and full disclosure of the transcripts themselves some six weeks after that. Further, the defendants were still entitled to protection of the ten-day rule of § 2518(9). Since this appeal is itself interlocutory, they cannot claim that they have been put to trial without “reasonable opportunity to prepare an adequate response”. Chun, supra, 503 F.2d at 538. They are, therefore, in a far more advantageous position than was defendant Venuetucci in United States v. Cirillo, supra. There Venue-tucci did not actually learn of the interceptions of tapes involving his own conversations until the day they were introduced at his trial. The interceptions had been procured under the New York wiretap law which had been enacted following Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 87 S.Ct. 1873, 18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967). Nevertheless, the Second Circuit, while agreeing that the government should have produced the tapes earlier, found their admission not to be reversible error where failure to make earlier disclosure was the result of oversight, no continuance was sought, and the defendant’s claims of actual prejudice bordered on the frivolous. United States v. Cirillo, supra, 499 F.2d at 882-883.

Conclusion

This area of law is both novel and difficult and neither the trial court nor counsel have been furnished with much appellate guidance in working out the very real problems which arise under the statute. For that reason, I would vacate the order suppressing the wiretap evidence relating to Merlo and Lauer, and remand to the district court for reconsideration in the light of the foregoing observations, leaving it to the district judge to determine whether, in connection therewith, any further evidentiary hearing may also be required.