Court Opinion

ID: 9424982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:13:21.72515+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:52.952703
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
concurring.
Under 28 U. S. C. § 1826 (a) a witness who refuses to testify “without just cause” may be held in contempt of court. Here, grand jury witnesses are involved, and the just cause claimed to excuse them is that the testimony demanded involves the disclosure and use of communica*70tions allegedly intercepted in violation of the controlling federal statute and hence inadmissible under 18 U. S. C. § 2515.
The United States asserts that § 2515 affords no excuse to grand jury witnesses under any circumstances. Reliance is placed on §2518 (10) (a) and the legislative history of the statute. I agree with the Court, however, that at least where the United States has intercepted communications without a warrant in circumstances where court approval was required, it is appropriate in construing and applying 28 U. S. C. § 1826 not to require the grand jury witness to answer and hence further the plain policy of the wiretap statute. This unquestionably works a change in the law with respect to the rights of grand jury witnesses, but it is a change rooted in a complex statute, the meaning of which is not immediately obvious as the opinions filed today so tellingly demonstrate.
Where the Government produces a court order for the interception, however, and the witness nevertheless demands a full-blown suppression hearing to determine the legality of the order, there may be room for striking a different accommodation between the due functioning of the grand jury system and the federal wiretap statute. Suppression hearings in these circumstances would result in protracted interruption of grand jury proceedings. At the same time, prosecutors and other officers who have been granted and relied on a court order for the interception would be subject to no liability under the statute, whether the order is valid or not; and, in any event, the deterrent value of excluding the evidence will be marginal at best. It is well, therefore, that the Court has left this issue open for consideration by the District Court on remand. See ante, at 61 n. 22.
*71Of course, where the Government officially denies the fact of electronic surveillance of the witness, the matter is at an end and the witness must answer.