Court Opinion

ID: 9663224
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:32:18.285685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:46.718728
License: Public Domain

Clinton, J.,
dissenting.
For reasons hereafter stated, I dissent. The purposes of Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 86-705(1) (c) and 86-705(3) (c) (Reissue 1976) are designed only to insure that wiretapping is not routinely employed as the initial step in a criminal investigation. State v. DiMauro and Kessler, 205 Neb. 275, 287 N.W.2d 74 (1980). These sections of the statute do not require the exhaustion of all other possible or reasonable avenues of investigation. They do not in fact require that other methods even be tried if the application demonstrates other procedures are unlikely to succeed or are too dangerous. Their requirements are alternative. Other methods must have been tried and failed “or” the second alternative must be demonstrated. State v. Kolosseus, 198 Neb. 404, 253 N.W.2d 157 (1977).
The majority opinion concludes that the application in this case is insufficient because it was routinely employed as the initial step in the criminal investigation. I dissent because I believe a careful examination of the application sufficiently demonstrates that methods other than wiretap are unlikely to succeed.
As the facts of the application described in the majority opinion demonstrate, and as our opinion in State v. Lozano, 209 Neb. 772, 311 N.W.2d 529 (1981), shows, the law enforcement officials were engaged in the investigation of a conspiracy to acquire, sell, and distribute controlled substances involving Lozano and certain other named individuals, as well as certain persons whose names were unknown. The application in Lozano includes supporting affidavits and exhibits outlining the long history of the failure *57of investigative methods other than wiretap. These included information from confidential informants, searches of the Lozano residence, telephone toll records, surveillance, attempts to purchase drugs by undercover officers, information indicating a close-knit network of relatives, friends, and longtime associates, and a refusal to deal with persons unknown to the conspirators. We found the application sufficient in Lozano.
An authorized tap on the Lozano telephone disclosed, through several intercepted conversations, that Joy Lane, a party to the intercepted conversation, was a participant in the conspiracy. The proper legal authorities then filed an application for a tap on the Lane telephone, which the District Court found sufficient, and the tap was authorized.
The initial wiretap involving the Lozano telephone was obtained on January 29, 1980; the tap on the Lane telephone was secured on February 10, 1980; and the tap on the Richter telephone (case No. 44097), on February 13, 1980. These individuals were arrested on February 21, 1980.
The application in this case incorporated all of the information in the Lozano application and, in addition thereto, the contents of the conversations between Lozano and Lane which had been intercepted pursuant to the authorized tap on the Lozano telephone which we had found to be lawful. The supporting affidavits conclude that there is an ongoing conspiracy and that Joy Lane is a supplier of drugs to Lozano.
The information in the application, including toll call records, indicates that the conspiracy is a widespread one involving connections in Salt Lake City, the State of Florida, and many other towns and cities throughout the United States, including several cities in Nebraska.
The application and the supporting affidavits indicate very clearly that Joy Lane was a part of the on*58going conspiracy and that crimes were in progress. In addition to the above, the judge would be entitled to make the following inferences from the facts set forth: (1) Joy Lane was at least as cautious as the other conspirators as to whom investigative methods other than wiretap had been unsuccessful. (2) Joy Lane’s part in the conspiracy is conducted almost wholly, if not entirely, by telephone communications. (3) The only way in which the investigating officers were likely to get information which would enable them to act in a timely manner in obtaining search and arrest warrants would be by interception of telephone communications from or to Joy Lane.
The majority opinion relies to a large extent upon United States v. Santora, 583 F.2d 453 (9th Cir. 1978). Santora has been criticized by one of the text writers in the following language: “The court may have been too demanding. It might require a several-week hiatus between the expiration of the first-generation warrant and the completion of the normal investigation into the targets of the second-generation warrants. To insist upon such an investigation might permit crimes to go undetected (particularly if the first-generation tap revealed that the second-generation targets were about to attempt a major criminal transaction) or render the probable cause for the second-generation warrant, which is provided by the first-generation warrant, stale.
“Law enforcement officials should begin to investigate potential second-generation targets as soon as they have been identified. The second-generation application should detail the efforts which have been made and explain why the results are unsatisfactory. The application should then stress the length and complexity of the investigation which preceded the first-generation warrant, explain the importance of the second-generation warrant to the original (or expanded) goals of the investigation, explain why extensive use of ordinary procedures might alert the *59targets to the existence of the initial warrant or destroy the effectiveness of the new warrant in advance of its being obtained, and emphasize the need to act quickly lest important opportunities be lost.” Fishman, Wiretapping and Eavesdropping § 188 at 110 (Cum. Supp. 1981).
The Santora precedent does not, of course, bind this court. There are other precedents which we are free to follow and which I believe we should follow. In United States v. Williams, 580 F.2d 578 (D.C. Cir. 1978), the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, was confronted with a situation similar to that which we have before us and involved what Professor Fishman referred to as second-generation applications. In that case the first-generation application, referred to as the Seventh Street investigation, set forth the long history of the investigation by ordinary methods, all of which were unsuccessful. The conclusion of that application was: “ ‘[d]ue to the considerable length of time covered by this investigation using all possible normal investigative techniques, and through the experience of affiant and other Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation familiar with the investigation of numbers gambling operations, it is reasonably concluded [that] the continued use of normal investigative techniques would not bring this matter to a successful conclusion.’
“The Lando ver application, which was made after completion of the Seventh Street interceptions, incorporates the earlier affidavit and similarly details reasons for the Government’s belief that the target telephones were being used in a gambling operation. The Landover affidavit also includes transcripts of calls intercepted on the Seventh Street line from the target telephones, and a concluding section similar to that in the Seventh Street affidavit.
“Appellants argue that the summary and prayer portions of the affidavits contain mere boilerplate *60assertions, in derogation of the státutory command. To be sure, these sections of the affidavits are framed in conclusory terminology, but they cannot rationally be separated from the preceding detailed descriptions of the investigative events. Applications are not to be read in a piecemeal fashion, and viewed as a whole the requests here delineated the reasons — -which we deem ample — why other investigative techniques either had failed or would not be feasible. The Government had conducted a multifaceted five-year investigation and still was unable to secure the evidence necessary to prosecute many of the principals of the gambling operation. This, then, is not a situation in which the Government sought to employ wiretapping as a routine investigative tool; neither is it a case in which the Government relied simply on ‘the insufficiency of alternative procedures in gambling prosecutions in general . . . .’ Instead, after scrutinizing the numbers activity over a long period of time by conventional techniques, the Government not unreasonably believed it needed to utilize electronic surveillance to gain enough intelligence about the ‘nature and the scope’ of the operation. In short, ‘exposure of [the] entire operation required different and more sophisticated techniques.’ The applications adequately set forth the basis for concluding that normal investigative procedures had been exhausted or would be unlikely to produce essential evidence, and the District Court correctly held that the statutory requirement had been satisfied.” Williams at 589-90.
In United States v. Baker, 589 F.2d 1008 (9th Cir. 1979), a similar situation existed. The court said: “The Jones affidavit, in addition to individually directed details, does allege circumstances pertaining to all of the tapped telephones and the putative participants that meet the tests laid down by this court. These included a factual showing of due consideration of the possibilities of infiltration, the infeasi*61bility of locating gambling records, the reluctance of informants to testify in court, the probable unproductiveness of investigation through grand jury proceedings, the conducting of numerous physical surveillances of all of the principals listed in the affidavit, including Judd, and the discovery that they were particularly wary of surveillance. These general allegations were particularized by specific examples of difficulties and obstructions encountered in the process.
“It is true that Judd’s situation unlike that of other suspects was not covered by specific examples of unsuccessful physical surveillance or infiltration. Yet we believe that the Jones affidavit read as a whole reasonably established as to Judd, as well as to the others named, that other or additional investigative procedures short, of electronic surveillance if further pursued would be unlikely to succeed. Government investigators, subject to evaluation by the courts on similar bases, are entitled to use reason and common sense in the performance and documentation of their investigations to support applications for wiretaps. The statute does not mandate the indiscriminate pursuit to the bitter end of every non-electronic device as to every telephone and principal in question to a point where the investigation becomes redundant or impractical or the subjects may be alerted and the entire investigation aborted by unreasonable insistence upon forlorn hope. Upon the showing made, the district court could reasonably conclude, and did so, that alternative means of investigation had failed or likely would be unsuccessful as to Judd.’’ Baker at 1012-13.
In Cuba v. State, 362 So. 2d 29 (Fla. App. 1978), the District Court of Appeals of Florida, after making reference to the statutory requirement, “a full and complete statement as to whether or not other investigative procedures have been tried and failed or why they reasonably appear to be unlikely to sue*62ceed if tried or to be too dangerous,” said at 32: “The purpose of that requirement as stated by the Supreme Court of the United States with reference to a similar provision in the Federal statute, is ‘to assure that wiretapping is not resorted to in situations where traditional investigative techniques would suffice to expose the crime.’ United States v. Kahn, 415 U.S. 143, 94 S. Ct. 977, 39 L. Ed. 2d 225 (1974). Also, it is held in federal decisions that it is not the purpose of that requirement that electronic surveillance must be foreclosed until every other imaginable method of investigation has been unsuccessfully attempted, ‘but simply to inform the issuing judge of the difficulties involved in the use of conventional techniques’. United States v. Pacheco, 489 F.2d 554, 565 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Alfonso, 552 F.2d 605, 611 (5th Cir. 1977). It is common knowledge, derived from experience, that conventional investigative techniques generally are insufficient for adequate and successful prosecutorial termination of such criminal lottery activites. See: United States v. Abramson, 553 F.2d 1164, 1171 (8th Cir. 1977).”
We ought not examine the trial court’s conclusions de novo. On review, an appellate court does not reexamine de novo whether alternatives might have sufficed; rather, the reviewing court’s role is to decide if the facts set forth in the application were minimally adequate to support the determination that was made. United States v. Scibelli, 549 F.2d 222 (1st Cir. 1976), cert. denied 431 U.S. 960, 97 S. Ct. 2687, 53 L. Ed. 2d 278 (1977). The requirements of § 86-705(3) (c) are insignificant and the burden imposed thereby is de minimis. United States v. James, 494 F.2d 1007 (D.C. Cir. 1974).
Adherence to the too demanding requirements set forth in the majority opinion will, without question, greatly hinder if not render impossible the apprehension and conviction of many persons engaged in *63a widespread drug conspiracy. It also results in this obviously guilty defendant being freed.
I would affirm the conviction.
Boslaugh and Hastings, JJ., join in this dissent.