Hoffa v. United States
| Citation | 387 U.S. 231,87 S.Ct. 1583,18 L.Ed.2d 738 |
| Decision Date | 22 May 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 1003,1003 |
| Parties | James R. HOFFA et al. v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | United States Supreme Court |
Maurice J. Walsh, Morris A. Shenker, Joseph A. Fanelli, Frank Ragano, George F. Callaghan, Richard E. Gorman, Jacques M. Schiffer and Charles A. Bellows, for petitioner.
Solicitor General Marshall, Assistant Attorney General Vinson, Beatrice Rosenberg and Jerome M. Feit, for the United States.
Petitioners were convicted of various counts under a 28-count indictment charging mail and wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, and conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. The United States claimed, and the jury apparently found that petitioners conspired to defraud, and did defraud, the Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, with the prime objective of financially rehabilitating Sun Valley, Inc., a real estate enterprise in which certain of the petitioners had important interests. For reasons which follow, we do not reach, one way or the other, any of the contentions urged by petitioners in support of their petition for a writ of certiorari.
In response to the petition, the Solicitor General sua sponte has advised the Court that on December 2, 1963, some six months after the indictment in this case, a conversation between petitioner Burris and one Benjamin Sigelbaum, not a defendant in this prosecution, was overheard by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a result of electronic eavesdropping. The eavesdropping equipment had been installed in Sigelbaum's office, by trespass, some 12 months before this conversation, and thereafter had been maintained in operation. We are informed by the Solicitor General that the recorded conversation was concerned both with the proposed transfer to Sigelbaum of Burris' interest in Sun Valley, and with the conduct of the defense to this prosecution. The Solicitor General has indicated that the contents of the recording were available to government attorneys involved in this prosecution, but adds that the recording was only 'peripherally relevant to the charges underlying (Burris') conviction.'* We are, moreover, advised by him that the information obtained through this electronic eavesdropping was not introduced into evidence at trial, that it was never the basis of any investigative lead, and that it was in part already known, through Burris' own statements, to government attorneys. Unlike the situations in Black v. United States, 385 U.S. 26, 87 S.Ct. 190, 17 L.Ed.2d 26, and O'Brien v. United States, 386 U.S. 345, 87 S.Ct. 1158, 18 L.Ed.2d 94, there was apparently no direct intrusion here into attorney-client discussions. In these circumstances, we find no 'adequate justification,' Black v. United States, supra, 385 U.S. at 29, 87 S.Ct. at 192, now to require a new trial of Burris or of any of the other petitioners; the more orderly and appropriate procedure is instead to remand the case to the District Court for a hearing, findings, and conclusions on the nature and relevance to these convictions of the recorded conversation, and of any other conversations that may be shown to have been overheard through similar eavesdropping. United States v. Shotwell Mfg. Co., 355 U.S. 233, 78 S.Ct. 245, 2 L.Ed.2d 234.
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