Court Opinion

ID: 9454182
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:38:30.534192+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:00.002244
License: Public Domain

CASTLE, Chief Judge,
with whom HASTINGS and FAIRCHILD, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
I find myself unable to agree that the decisional basis of On Lee has been eroded to the extent that the electronic monitoring of the defendant’s conversations with the informer, with the latter’s consent, must now be regarded as constituting an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The majority opinion recognizes that on its facts On Lee is directly in point and would control the disposition of this case unless its teaching is to be completely rejected. I join with Justice White in regarding On, Lee as “undisturbed” by the decision in Katz. (Concurring opinion, Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 363, n., 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967)).
Although a substantial part of the rationale of On Lee has arguably been discredited in later cases,1 the case was cited with approval in Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 438, 83 S.Ct. 1381, 10 L. Ed.2d 462 (1963) and in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 363, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Concurring opinion of Justice White).
The Government’s use of conversations obtained by the deception of a Government agent has been dealt with in numerous cases, and the validity of such conduct has consistently been upheld where the conversation was freely entered into by the defendant.
Thus, in Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 439, 83 S.Ct. 1381, 10 L.Ed.2d 462 (1963), the Supreme Court held that the recording made by a Government agent of a bribe offer was properly admitted into evidence. Since the agent was entitled to, and did, testify about the conversation he had with the defendant, there was no “seizure” of anything without the defendant’s knowledge and consent when he voluntarily participated in the incriminating conversation. The recording device, therefore, was used only to obtain the most reliable evidence possible of a conversation which the Government rightfully heard through its *849agent. Moreover, the case involved “no ‘eavesdropping’ whatever in any proper sense of that term. The Government did not use an electronic device to listen in on conversations it could not otherwise have heard.” 373 U.S. at 439, 83 S.Ct. at 1388. It followed that there was no search and seizure which violated the Fourth Amendment.
Even more recently decided were Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206, 87 S.Ct. 424, 17 L.Ed.2d 312 (1966), and Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966). In Lewis, the Court held that where the defendant invited a person, who was a secret Government agent, into his house for the purpose of selling narcotics to the agent, the subsequent admission into evidence of the narcotics bought by the agent and the conversations which had taken place between the parties did not violate the Fourth Amendment since the agent took nothing which the defendant had not voluntarily given to him, and the deception did not nullify the defendant’s consent.
In Hoffa, the Court held that no violation of the Fourth Amendment occurred when an acquaintance of defendant, whom defendant had invited to his hotel suite, heard conversations directed to him or to others in his presence. Unknown to defendant the acquaintance was a paid Government informer. Holding that this was merely a case of “misplaced confidence” rather than unreasonable search and seizure, the Court noted that “[n] either this Court nor any member of it has ever expressed the view that the Fourth Amendment protects a wrongdoer’s misplaced belief that a person to whom he voluntarily confides his wrongdoing will not reveal it.” (Citing Lopez). 385 U.S. at 302, 87 S.Ct. at 413.
Taken together, these cases establish the principle that one who voluntarily enters into a conversation with another takes the risk that such person may memorize, record, or (including On Lee) transmit the conversation.2 It seems reasonable to conclude that if the recording in Lopez was not “eavesdropping,” because it was done with the consent of one of the participants, and therefore not an unreasonable search and seizure, then a transmission is likewise not prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. Absent statutory prohibition, there is no legal significance in the fact that in one case, the transmission, a person is simultaneously overhearing the conversation with the consent of one of the participants while in the other a machine is employed to record such conversation for future disclosure. Therefore, I perceive no distinction which would require different treatment for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
I do not read the recent decision in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) as changing the law as expressed in the cases just discussed. Nor do I view the decision in Katz as extending to the degree ascribed to it by the majority. In Katz, the Court reversed a conviction based upon one side of a telephone conversation overheard by Government agents by means of an electronic eavesdropping device installed on the public telephone booth in which defendant placed his call. The Court held that:
“ * * * the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not subject to Fourth Amendment protection. See Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206, 210 [87 S.Ct. 424, 427, 17 L.Ed.2d 312]; United States v. Lee, 274 U.S. 559, 563 [47 S.Ct. 746, 748, 71 L. Ed. 1202], But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area aceessable to the public, may be constitutionally protected. * * * ” 389 U.S. at 351-352, 88 S.Ct. at 511.
The use of this language by the Supreme Court illustrates the distinction *850between Katz and the instant case, and demonstrates the present state of the law. In Katz, the Government surreptitiously overheard one side of a conversation without the consent of either party thereto, and after the defendant had taken reasonable steps to protect his privacy. The Court, therefore, held that “[t]he Government’s activities in electronically listening to and recording the petitioner’s words violated the privacy upon which he justifiably relied while using the telephone booth and thus constituted a 'search and seizure’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” 389 U.S. at 353, 88 S.Ct. at 212.
Unlike Katz, the instant case involves not a search and seizure, but a misplaced confidence—not surreptitious eavesdropping, but merely the obtaining of evidence of a conversation in which the Government, through its informer, was a participant. See Lopez v. United States, 373 U.S. 427, 439, 83 S.Ct. 1381, 10 L.Ed.2d 462 (1963). Had the person on the other end of the telephone line in Katz allowed a Government agent to listen in on the conversation, there would have been no constitutional violation. Rathbun v. United States, 355 U.S. 107, 111, 78 S.Ct. 161, 2 L.Ed.2d 134 (1957); United States v. Williams, 311 F.2d 721, 725 (7th Cir. 1963), cert. den. 374 U.S. 812, 83 S.Ct. 1703, 10 L.Ed.2d 1035 (1963). Thus, once the conversation is deprived of its private character through the consent of one of the parties thereto, the Fourth Amendment, not having prohibited the initial exposure, does not prohibit the introduction into evidence of the conversation as transmitted or recorded. As stated in Katz, itself, “what a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not subject to Fourth Amendment protection. See Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206, 210 [87 S.Ct. 424, 427, 17 L.Ed.2d 312] * * * ” 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511 (emphasis added).
Thus, any expectation, by defendant, of privacy, when the person to whom the defendant is speaking consents to exposure of the conversation is not reasonable and therefore not protected by the Fourth Amendment. This Court recently pointed out the distinction between electronic eavesdropping and misplaced confidence in United States v. Haden, 397 F.2d 460 (7th Cir. 1968), where we held (at page 465):
“One who intends a conversation or transaction to be private and takes reasonable steps to keep it private is protected from government intrusion unauthorized by warrant or well-defined special circumstances. Cf. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). But he is not protected from the consequences of error if he places trust in the silence, duplicity or complicity of a government agent or informer.”
Therefore, the application of Katz to the instant case is its recognition of the principle that:
“When one man speaks to another he takes all the risks ordinarily inherent in so doing, including the risk that the man to whom he speaks will make public what he has heard. The Fourth Amendment does not protect against unreliable (or law-abiding) associates. Hoffa v. United States, supra. It is but a logical and reasonable extension of this principle that a man take the risk that his hearer, free to memorize what he hears for later verbatim repetitions, is instead recording it or transmitting it to another. The present case [Katz] deals with an entirely different situation, for as the Court emphasizes, the petitioner “sought to exclude * * * the uninvited ear,” and spoke under circumstances in which a reasonable person would assume that uninvited ears were not listening.” Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 363 n., 88 S.Ct. 507, 517, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967) (Concurring opin*851ion of Justice White), (Emphasis supplied).3
In concluding that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the transmission of a conversation to a Government agent by a participant therein, where the defendant is a voluntary party to the conversation, I am mindful of the fact that, as recognized in numerous Supreme Court decisions,4 as well as our own,5 the stratagem of deception is often the only way the Government can obtain information relating to a crime. To prohibit the use of such deceit might, in certain areas, prevent effective law enforcement. The Supreme Court in Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206, at 210-211, 87 S.Ct. 424, 17 L.Ed.2d 312 (1966), cited with approval a quotation from the Model Penal Code § 2.10, comment, p. 16 (Tent.Draft No. 9, 1959):
“Particularly, in the enforcement of vice, liquor or narcotics laws, it is all but impossible to obtain evidence for prosecution save by the use of decoys. There are rarely complaining witnesses. The participants in the crime enjoy themselves. Misrepresentation by a police officer or agent concerning the identity of the purchaser of illegal narcotics is a practical necessity * * Therefore, the law must attempt to distinguish between those deceits and persuasions which are permissible and those which are not.”
For the reasons stated above, I am of the view that the method of deception employed in the instant case is constitutionally permissible and is not so fundamentally unfair as to require reversal in the exercise of our supervisory power over the district court. Rather than being of an indiscriminate nature, as in Berger v. New York, 388 U.S. 41, 87 S.Ct. 1873, 18 L.Ed.2d 1040 (1967), Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), and Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961), the electronic transmission in the instant case included only those words which defendant voluntarily spoke to the informer and intended that he hear, thus knowingly taking the risk that the informer would disclose them to the Government.
Such view does not, therefore, approve or permit violation of the “requirements of the Fourth Amendment in the name of law enforcement.” as Berger forbids (388 U.S. at 62, 87 S.Ct. at 1885), but rests on a conclusion compelled by an analysis of those decisions in which the Supreme Court has to date considered the subject matter.

. e. g., Warden Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 304, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967): “The premise that property interests control the right of the Government to search and seize has been discredited.” Cf. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 353, 88 S.Ct. 507, 512, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); Silverman v. v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).

. It is important to note that, as in the instant case, there was no search warrant or court order in Lopez, Lewis, or Hoffa.

. Justice White, in the same footnote, also cited Hoffa, Lopez and On Lee as cases “which are undisturbed by today’s decision.”

. e. g., Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206, 208-211, 87 S.Ct. 424, 17 L.Ed.2d 312 (1966); Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435, 441-442, 53 S.Ct. 210, 77 L.Ed. 413 (1932); Andrews v. United States, 162 U.S. 420, 423, 16 S.Ct. 798, 40 L.Ed. 1023 (1896).

. e. g., United State v. Haden, 397 F.2d 460 (7th Cir. 1968); United States v. Lauchli, 371 F.2d 303 (7th Cir. 1966); See also Cellino v. United States, 276 F.2d 941 (9th Cir. 1960).