Court Opinion

ID: 9668345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:10:05.960366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:44.801972
License: Public Domain

WAHL, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. The trial court and the court of appeals correctly determined that the warrant authorizing the wire tap in this case was fatally defective on its face requiring suppression of the evidence obtained by the wire tap.
The language of the Privacy of Communications Act1 is explicit and unequivocal. In addition to meeting probable cause requirements, Minn.Stat. § 626A.06, subd. 4(h) requires that wiretap warrants
fSjhall also specify * * *
a statement that the warrant shall be executed as soon as practicable, shall be executed in such a way as to minimize the interception of communications not otherwise subject to interception under section 626A.01 to 626A.23 and must terminate upon attainment of the authorized objective, or in any event in ten days.
Id. (emphasis added). It is undisputed that the warrant at issue did not contain the language explicitly required in subdivision 4(h). It is not for this court to determine that otherwise clear subdivisions of the act are “redundant” and need not be enforced. The legislature has provided, through Minn.Stat. § 645.17 (1988), that the entire statute is to be presumed effective and certain.
The assistant county attorney, who drafted the warrant in issue, failed to include the termination language expressly mandated by Minn.Stat. § 626A.06, subd. 4(h). The majority determines that this violation of the termination requirement is a “technical omission” which does not require suppression of the evidence gathered. The Privacy of Communications Act provides otherwise in Minn.Stat. § 626A.04 (1988):
Whenever any wire or oral communications has been intercepted, no part of the
contents of such communication and no evidence derived therefrom may be received in evidence in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court or grand jury if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of sections 626A.01 to 626A.23.
That disclosure of the evidence in issue would be in violation of the Act, as described in section 626A.04, is made clear in Minn.Stat. § 626A.02, subd. 1(c) (1988), which prohibits disclosure of the contents of any wiretap except as specifically authorized under the Act. Reinforcing this conclusion is Minn.Stat. § 626A.12 (1988), which permits an aggrieved party to make a motion to suppress evidence. Grounds for such a motion include facial insufficiency of the wiretap authorization. Minn.Stat. § 626A.12, subd. l(ii). Facial insufficiency is listed separate and distinct from a motion based on a constitutional violation. Clearly the Privacy of Communications Act itself envisions motions to suppress evidence gathered pursuant to warrants which *769on their face fail to comply with the terms of the Act.
Out of concern for the privacy of its citizens, the legislature in Minn.Stat. § 626A.06 has created an exacting and somewhat inflexible statutory scheme which controls the issuance of wiretap warrants. This court applied that scheme literally in State v. Frink, 296 Minn. 57, 206 N.W.2d 664 (1973) and held a warrant invalid because the county attorney himself had not applied for the warrant as the law required. In Frink we explicitly rejected the “mere technical violation” argument now advanced by the State in this case. Id. at 72-73, 206 N.W.2d at 672-73. Subsequent to Frink, we decided State v. Monsrud, 337 N.W.2d 652 (Minn.1983). In Monsrud we took a “pragmatic and commonsense approach to the particularity requirement.” Id. at 658. The majority correctly notes that this commonsense approach is justified because judgment is required to determine if the words as written in the warrant satisfy the particularity requirement of the statute. Majority op. at 765. No such judgment is required in this case. Neither the State nor the majority contend that the warrant actually complies with a literal reading of the Act. Nothing in Monsrud stands for the proposition that warrants, not in actual compliance with the Act, ought nevertheless to be excused for that noncompliance. Nothing in our previous case law suggests that mere technical violations of Minn.Stat. § 626A.06 should be overlooked. As the State’s warrant on its face fails to comply with the Act’s termination requirement, Minn.Stat. § 626A.04 requires suppression of the resulting evidence.
I would affirm the decisions of the trial court and court of appeals.

. Minn.Stat. §§ 626A.01-626A.23 (1988).