Court Opinion

ID: 9586852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:15:56.329168+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:54.181124
License: Public Domain

Bell, Justice,
dissenting.
Because today’s majority opinion produces a result squarely contradictory to the fundamental intent of our electronic surveillance statute, I dissent.
This case turns upon whether the inductor coils utilized by the Fulton district attorney’s surveillance team are “devices” within the meaning of OCGA § 16-11-60 (1) (Code Ann. § 26-3009). If they are, then the warrants issued in this case were defective, as they were not applied for or issued in the circuit where these “devices” were physically placed. OCGA § 16-11-64 (b) (Code Ann. § 26-3004); § 16-11-60 (1) (Code Ann. § 26-3009).
The majority, showing undue concern with administrative inconvenience (majority opinion at 318), concludes that inductor coils are not devices within the meaning of OCGA § 16-11-60 (1) (Code Ann. § 26-3009).
I cannot agree. First, as a matter of fact, an inductor coil is clearly a device within the meaning of our surveillance statute. The state’s own expert described how the inductor coils utilized by the state functioned. He said that whenever the target phone was being used, the electronic signal from the telephone passed through the magnetic coil which was attached by lead wires to the subscriber line’s terminals, setting up an electromagnetic field within the inductor coil, which in turn reproduced the electronic signal within the magnetic coil which was attached by lead wire to the terminals on the line leased by the district attorney.1 In view of this description of the function of an inductor coil, there can be no doubt that inductor coils clearly qualify as instruments or apparatuses which electronically intercept and transmit sounds within the facial meaning of OCGA § 16-11-60 (Code Ann. § 26-3009).
*324This conclusion is also compelled by a consideration which is crucial to the resolution of this case, but is ignored by the majority — an examination of the Congressional policy underlying the federal, and I believe our own, surveillance statute. Congress clearly intended that applications for wiretaps be sought, to the greatest extent practicable, under a uniform, consistent policy. “Paragraph (2) [18 USCA 2516 (2) ] provides that the principal prosecuting attorney of any State or the principal prosecuting attorney of any political subdivision of a State may authorize an application to a State judge of competent jurisdiction... for an order authorizing the interception of wire or oral communications. The issue of delegation by that officer would be a question of State law. In most States, the principal prosecuting attorney of the State would be the attorney general. The important question, however, is not name but function. The intent of the proposed provision is to provide for the centralization of policy relating to statewide law enforcement in the area of the use of electronic surveillance in the chiefprosecuting officer of the State---Where no such office exists, policymaking would not be possible on a statewide basis; it would have to move down to the next level of government... In most States, the principal prosecuting attorney at the next political level of a State, usually the county, would be the district attorney. . . . The intent... is to centralize areawide law enforcement policy in him. . . . Where there are both an attorney general and a district attorney, either could authorize applications, the attorney general anywhere in the State and the district attorney anywhere in his county.” S. Rep. No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 98 (1968) (emphasis supplied), cited in United States v. Giordano, 416 U. S. 505, 522, fn. 11 (94 SC 1820, 40 LE2d 341) (1974).
It was unquestionably the intent of Congress and our General Assembly to centralize in our state Attorney General cross-jurisdictional law enforcement in the area of the use of electronic surveillance, and to centralize electronic surveillance within any given circuit in the hands of that circuit’s district attorney. Although it is not the duty of this court to find ways to circumvent clear legislative intent, the majority has effectively done so in the instant case, as its opinion will produce results squarely *325contradictory to the intent of Congress and our General Assembly. Under the majority’s rationale, the district attorney of any judicial circuit in Georgia can now apply to a judge in his circuit for a warrant authorizing the interception of wire or oral communications in any or all of the 159 counties of the State of Georgia. Moreover, the citizens of any given judicial circuit will now be subject to electronic surveillance warrants taken out by the Attorney General, their own district attorney, and any district attorney of the other forty-four judicial circuits of this state. I think that the potential impact on personal privacy of a total of forty-six uncoordinated, and, possibly, significantly conflicting state prosecutorial policies is clearly contrary to the fundamental intent of Congress and of our General Assembly, and should be disallowed. In conclusion, I find that under the facts of this case the Fulton district attorney did not have authority to apply for warrants for surveillance of telephones physically placed outside his own circuit; that the Fulton superior court judge had no authority to issue them; and that the evidence obtained pursuant to the defective warrants should have been suppressed.
For the above reasons, I would reverse the appellants’ convictions.

 The majority apparently finds that the federal definition of “device” should control the definition of the term as used in OCGA Title 16, Ch. 11, Art. 3, Pt. 1 (Code Ann. § 26-3001 et seq.). But, this conclusion ignores the plain language of OCGA § 16-11-64 (Code Ann. § 26-3004), which speaks in terms of “a device, but only as such term is specifically defined by Code Section 16-11-60 (Code Ann. § 26-3009),” (emphasis supplied), and of “investigation warrants permitting the use of devices, as defined by Code Section 16-11-60 (Code Ann. § 26-3009),” (emphasis supplied). *324Because the General Assembly clearly intended that OCGA § 16-11-60 (Code Ann. § 26-3009) supply the sole definition of the term “device” governing state surveillance warrants, and because OCGA § 16-11-60’s (Code Ann. § 26-3009) definition of that term is considerably more comprehensive than that of 18 USCA § 2510 (4) and (5), I do not consider the federal statute to be controlling on this point, and find that the broader definition of the state statute must be followed. Cox v. State, 152 Ga. App. 453, 454-456 (263 SE2d 238) (1979).