Com. v. Jackson

• Decision Date: 14 June 1976
• Citation: 349 N.E.2d 337,370 Mass. 502
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. Anthony JACKSON.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 337

349 N.E.2d 337

370 Mass. 502

COMMONWEALTH

v. Anthony JACKSON.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued May 3, 1976.

Decided June 14, 1976.

Robert S. Potters, Boston (Joseph J. Balliro, Boston, with him), for defendant.

Bonnie H. MacLeod-Griffin, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and BRAUCHER, KAPLAN, and WILKINS, JJ.

HENNESSEY, Chief Justice.

In this case we address the issue whether two taped telephone conversations in which the defendant was a participant were lawfully recorded under G.L. c. 272, § 99. ¹ The defendant filed a petition for interlocutory relief (G.L. c. 278, § 28E) from the trial judge's denial of his motion to suppress these two recorded telephone calls. A single justice of this court allowed the defendant's petition and reserved and reported the case on a statement of agreed facts for a determination by the full court. We affirm the trial judge's denial of the motion to suppress and hold that the tape recordings do not constitute an 'interception' in violation of G.L. c. 272, § 99.

The facts pertinent to this interlocutory appeal are as follows. On November 29, 1972, Damaris Synge Gillispie failed to return to her Cambridge apartment. On December 6 and 7, 1972, an unknown male called Miss Gillispie's residence on five separate occasions. During these five calls the caller provided information relating to Miss Gillispie's clothing, her friends, her family, and articles of clothing that she was wearing when she disappeared. He also asserted that 'I have her.' Each of these calls was recorded by the victim's brother, who used a 'tape recording cassette device' and attached the microphone to the earpiece of the telephone receiver with a suction cup. ²

During the course of the first taped conversation the caller said, 'You know, I know the phone is tapped, 'I'm hep to that, but I'm going to get in touch' and then he continued to speak describing certain of the victim's possessions. ³ During the third call the caller said, 'I know the thing is being taped, but that's cool too' and then proceeded to talk about the victim. No such statements were made during the second, fourth or fifth call.

Subsequently, a member of the Cambridge police department took custody of the five recorded conversations. Thereafter, several individuals, who knew the defendant, identified the recorded voice of the caller as that of the defendant. On February 13, 1973, the defendant was indicted by the Middlesex County grand jury for the crimes of murder in the first degree and kidnapping.

After the defendant's indictment, the Commonwealth filed a motion for a voice exemplar of the defendant accompanied by an affidavit recounting the facts as outlined above. In response, the defendant moved to suppress the contents of the five taped conversations asserting that the communications were unlawfully intercepted in violation of G.L. c. 272, § 99, because he had no knowledge that his conversations were being intercepted nor did he ever authorize such interceptions.

The trial judge held that the tape recordings of the second, fourth and fifth telephone calls should be suppressed under G.L. c. 272, § 99, P, which provides for the suppression in a criminal trial of the contents of wire or oral communication that is unlawfully intercepted or not intercepted in accordance with the statute. His decision as to these calls is not before us on appeal. However, the judge denied the defendant's motion to suppress the statements made during the first call after the caller said that he knew the telephone was tapped, and similarly, the statements made during the third call following the words, 'I know the thing is being taped.' Limiting ourselves to a consideration of only the first and third calls, we affirm the decision of the trial judge.

As conceded by the Commonwealth, there can be no doubt in this case that the victim's brother used an 'intercepting device' as defined in G.L. c. 272, § 99 B 3, and that he recorded the 'contents' of 'wire communications' within the meaning of G.L. c. 272, § 99 B 1 and 5. Therefore, the sole question before us is whether there was an 'interception' as defined by c. 27i, § 99 B 4, set forth below. ⁴

While we recognize that G.L. c. 272, § 99, is designed to control the use of electronic surveillance devices by private individuals because of the serious threat they post to 'the provacy of all citizens' (§ 99 A), it is clear that the Legislature intended that the statutory restrictions be applicable only to the secret use of such devices. (See § 99 A, and see § 99 B 4 which defines the term 'interception' to include 'to secretly hear (or to) secretly record.') Thus, if the two recordings in this case were not made secretly, they do not constitute an 'interception' as defined by § 99 B 4, nor should they be suppressed under § 99 P.

It is the defendant's argument that a recording is made secretly unless both parties have actual knowledge of the recording. He argues that the defendant's statements during the first and third calls, as to the conversation being 'tapped' or 'taped,' must be considered as nothing more than mere speculation, since the defendant could not have victim's brother never cording because the victim's brother never divulged the 'secret' by acknowledging that he was taping the calls. We reject the defendant's position, for we do not believe that such an overly restrictive construction is necessary under the statute.

We agree, as argued by the defendant, that we would render meaningless the Legislature's careful choice of words if we were to interpret 'secretly' as encompassing only those situations where an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy. If the Legislature had intended to establish such a standard, the statute would have been written in terms similar to those used in the California eavesdropping statute, see generally In re Joseph A, 30 Cal.App.3d 880, 106 Cal.Rptr. 729 (1973), which applies to communications 'carried on in such circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party to such communication desires it to be confined to such parties . . ..' Cal.Penal Code § 632 (Deering 1971). ⁵ Rather, it is apparent from the Report of the Special Commission on Electronic Eavesdropping, 1968 Senate Doc. No. 1132, that the legislative intent was to impose more stringent restrictions on the use of electronic surveillance devices by private individuals than is done in other States. ⁶

Despite this conclusion, we do not accept the defendant's position that the statute requires that the caller be informed that his conversation is being recorded if no 'interception' is to be found. No such provision, express or implied, exists in the statute. Nevertheless, we accept, as urged by the defendant, the proposition that the caller needs to have actual knowledge of the recording, but we believe that actual knowledge is proved where there are clear and unequivocal objective manifestations of knowledge, for such indicia are sufficiently probative of a person's state of mind as to allow an inference of knowledge and to make unnecessary any further requirement that the person recording the...