Kaiser v. New York
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner was convicted in a New York trial court in 1966 on three counts of conspiracy to extort, attempted extortion, and coercion. The case for the prosecution rested principally on the content of two telephone conversations between the petitioner and one of his co-conspirators. Tapes and transcripts of those conversations were introduced at the trial over the petitioner’s objection that they had been obtained by an unlawful
The telephone calls in question were made in 1964 by the petitioner from outside New York City to a co-conspirator at a bar in Manhattan. The conversations were recorded by means of a device attached to wires of the central terminal box in the basement of the building in which the bar was located. This wiretapping was conducted pursuant to a warrant issued under N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 813-a, the statute with which this Court subsequently dealt in Berger v. New York, 388 U. S. 41, in reversing a conviction under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The petitioner contends that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as construed in Berger, as well as § 605 of the Federal Communications Act,
Olmstead, then, stated the controlling interpretation of the Fourth Amendment with respect to wiretapping until it was overruled by Katz. And in Desist v. United States, ante, p. 244, we have held today that Katz is to be applied wholly prospectively. Since the wiretapping in this case occurred before Katz was decided and was accomplished without any intrusion into a constitutionally protected area of the petitioner, its fruits were not inadmissible under the exclusionary rule of the Fourth
Nor did § 605 of the Federal Communications Act require exclusion of the intercepted conversations. Until our decision last Term in Lee v. Florida, 392 U. S. 378, state trial courts were free to accept evidence violative of | 605.
Affirmed.
28 App. Div. 2d 647, 282 N. Y. S. 2d 207.
21 N. Y. 2d 86, 233 N. E. 2d 818.
390 U. S. 1023.
Section 605, 48 Stat. 1103, 47 U. S. C. § 605, reads in pertinent part as follows:
“ [N] o person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge . . . the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person . . . .”
The petitioner also contends that the prosecutor’s references to the recorded conversations as “confessions” were so inaccurate and misleading as to deny him due process. We do not believe that that characterization of the evidence raises any substantial federal question. The jury was aware that the prosecutor was adverting to the overheard conversations and knew the circumstances under which the incriminating statements had been made. In contrast to the
See Desist v. United States, ante, at 247-248.
Id., at 44. See also id., at 43, 57, 60, 64, 69.
Schwartz v. Texas, 344 U. S. 199.
Nardone v. United States, 302 U. S. 379, holding that evidence seized in violation of § 605 by federal officers was not admissible in federal criminal trials. See also Benanti v. United States, 355 U. S. 96, holding that such evidence seized by state officers must also be excluded from federal trials.
Dissenting Opinion
dissents.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
It is conceded that petitioner’s conviction rested largely upon evidence acquired by nontrespassory wiretapping conducted pursuant to a warrant issued under N. Y. Code Crim. Proc. § 813-a. The Court affirms the conviction on the ground that today’s decision in Desist v. United States, ante, p. 244, necessarily dictates that evidence
It is therefore necessary for me to consider whether petitioner’s federal constitutional rights were violated by the wiretapping. Were I free to do so, I would decide this issue by inquiring whether, on the facts of this particular case and in light of New York decisions construing § 813-a, the wiretapping was valid under the Warrants Clause of the Fourth Amendment. See Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 30-34 (1963); see also Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961). However, I believe that this approach is foreclosed by this Court’s decision in Berger v. New York, 388 U. S. 41 (1967). In Berger, the Court held that a “bugging” pursuant to a § 813-a warrant violated the petitioner’s Fourth Amendment rights because on its face the statute did not contain constitutionally required safeguards. It is true that the “bugging” in Berger involved a trespass and that the Court did not reach the question whether Olmstead should be overruled. But the holding that § 813-a was to be considered on its face rather than as applied depended in no way upon the fact of physical intrusion. The warrant procedure prescribed in § 813-a applies equally to “bugging” and to wiretapping. Hence, the Court’s “on its face” approach would seem necessarily to embrace § 813-a wiretapping.
I dissented from the “on its face” approach adopted in Berger. See 388 U. S., at 89 et seq. I continue to disagree with that approach. Yet I think that Berger must be taken as having decided that a warrant issued
There were no amendments to § 813-a between June 1962, the date of the “bugging” in Berger, and July 1964, the date of the wiretapping in this case. Nor in my view is it necessary to decide whether Berger should be “retroactive.” The present case was on direct appeal in the New York courts at the time Berger was decided, and petitioner is therefore entitled to invoke Berger under the rule advanced in Part I of my dissenting opinion in Desist.
Reference
- Cited By
- 57 cases
- Status
- Published