United States v. Ojeda Rios

• Decision Date: 30 April 1990
• Docket Number: No. 89-61,89-61
• Citation: 110 S.Ct. 1845,109 L.Ed.2d 224,495 U.S. 257
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Petitioner v. Filiberto OJEDA RIOS, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

495 U.S. 257

110 S.Ct. 1845

109 L.Ed.2d 224

UNITED STATES, Petitioner

v Filiberto OJEDA RIOS, et al.

No. 89-61.

Argued Feb. 28, 1990.

Decided April 30, 1990.

Syllabus

During a criminal investigation, the Government secured a series of court orders authorizing electronic surveillance of respondents, as mandated by Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq. Section 2518(8)(a) requires, in pertinent part, that: (1) recording "shall be done in such way as will protect the recording from editing or other alterations"; (2) "[i]mmediately upon the expiration of the period of the order, or extensions thereof," the recordings are to be made available to the judge who issued the order and sealed under his directions; and (3) "[t]he presence of the seal . . . or a satisfactory explanation" for its absence is a prerequisite for the use or disclosure of the evidence obtained from the recordings. Among the orders obtained, was an April 27, 1984, order for the surveillance of respondent Ojeda Rios' Levittown, Puerto Rico, residence and some nearby public telephones, which was extended until July 23, when he moved to another community. On July 27, the Government obtained a new order covering his new home, which, with extensions, expired on September 24. On October 13, three days after the expiration of an order authorizing surveillance of Ojeda Rios' car, all of the Ojeda Rios tapes were sealed. The Government also obtained an order authorizing it to wiretap two public telephones in Vega Baja, effective January 18, 1985, but that order expired on February 17. A new order, issued on March 1, expired on May 30, and the Vega Baja tapes were sealed on June 15. After they were indicted for various offenses, respondents moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of, inter alia, these wiretaps. The District Court suppressed the Levittown and Vega Baja tapes based solely on a delay in their sealing. The court found that the July 27 order authorizing the wiretap of Ojeda Rios' new residence was not an extension of the Levittown order, and therefore there was at least an 82-day delay—starting July 23—in sealing the Levittown tapes. Similarly, the March 1 Vega Baja order could not be considered an extension of the January 18 order, because of the delay in seeking the extension and the Government's failure to satisfactorily explain the delay. Thus, there was a 118-day delay in the sealing of those tapes. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held:

1. Section 2518(8)(a) applies to a delay in sealing as well as to a complete failure to seal tapes. Its primary thrust is to ensure the reliability and integrity of evidence obtained by means of electronic surveillance, and the sealing requirement is important precisely because it limits the Government's opportunity to alter the recordings. The narrow reading suggested by the Government—that since tapes must either bear a seal or the Government must provide a "satisfactory explanation" for the seal's "absence," the "satisfactory explanation" requirement does not apply where the tapes actually bear a seal, regardless of when or why the seal was applied—is not a plausible interpretation of congressional intent, since § 2518(8)(a) requires not just any seal but one that has been obtained immediately upon expiration of the underlying surveillance order. The Government's view would create the anomalous result that the prosecution could delay requesting a seal for months without risking a substantial penalty. Pp. 262-264.

2. The "satisfactory explanation" language requires that the Government explain not only why a delay occurred but also why it is excusable. The Government's submission—that the requirement is satisfied if it first explains why the delay occurred and then demonstrates that the tapes are authentic—would nullify the requirement's function as a safeguard against tampering and is foreclosed by the provision's plain words. The fact that the Government has an incentive to seal tapes immediately to avoid lengthy pretrial suppression hearings is no more than a statement that only rarely would there be a delay and does not answer the issue posed where there is a delay that is not satisfactorily explained. Moreover, the argument is suspect since early sealing does not foreclose a challenge to authenticity, which would also require lengthy proceedings. Pp. 264-265.

3. This case is remanded for a determination whether the Government's explanation to the District Court substantially corresponds to the one it now advances: that the delays were the result of a goodfaith, objectively reasonable misunderstanding of the statutory term "extension," based on the supervising attorney's interpretation of two Circuit cases which he believed indicated that the Government was not required to seek sealing until there was a meaningful hiatus in the investigation as a whole. Those cases support the conclusion that this theory was an objectively reasonable, although incorrect, interpretation of the law at the time of the delays, and to the extent that the Court of Appeals required the Government to prove that its interpretation of the law was absolutely correct, it held the Government to too strict a standard. Nonetheless, the explanation is not "satisfactory" within the meaning of the statute unless it was actually advanced at the suppression hearing to ex- plain the delays, a question not addressed by the Court of Appeals. Pp. 265-267.

875 F.2d 17, vacated and remanded.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BLACKMUN, O'CONNOR, SCALIA, and KENNEDY, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined, post, p. 267. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 268.

William C. Bryson, Washington, D.C., for petitioner.

Richard A. Reeve, Hartford, Conn., for respondents.

Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case arises under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (Title III), as amended, 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq., which regulates the interception of wire, oral, and electronic communications. Except under extraordinary circumstances, see § 2518(7), electronic surveillance may be conducted only pursuant to a court order. See §§ 2518(1)-(6). Section 2518(8)(a) requires that "[t]he contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication intercepted by any means authorized by this chapter shall, if possible, be recorded on tape or wire or other comparable device" and that recording "shall be done in such way as will protect the recording from editing or other alterations." The section further provides that "[i]mmediately upon the expiration of the period of the order, or extensions thereof, such recordings shall be made available to the judge issuing such order and sealed under his directions." Section 2518(8)(a) has an explicit exclusionary remedy ¹ for noncompliance with the sealing requirement, providing that "[t]he presence of the seal provided for by this subsection, or a satisfactory explanation for the absence thereof, shall be a prerequisite for the use or disclosure of the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication or evidence derived therefrom under subsection (3) of section 2517."²

In this case, a series of court orders authorized electronic surveillance. The tapes later offered in evidence bore seals but the seals on the tapes at issue had not been immediately attached as required by the statute. The issue we address is whether § 2518(8)(a) requires suppression of those tapes.

Respondents are members of a Puerto Rican organization known as Los Macheteros (the "machete wielders"). All have been charged with federal crimes relating to the robbery in 1983 of a Wells Fargo depot in Connecticut, a robbery which netted approximately $7 million. The Government first began investigating respondents in connection with a rocket attack on the United States Courthouse in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. Effective April 27, 1984, the Government obtained an order of electronic surveillance for the residence of Filiberto Ojeda Rios in Levittown, Puerto Rico, and for some public telephones near the residence. During its investigation of the rocket attack, the Government discovered evi- dence indicating that respondents had been involved in the Wells Fargo depot robbery. The Government obtained two extensions of the April 27 surveillance order, with the final extension expiring on July 23, 1984. The Government actually terminated surveillance at the Levittown residence and public telephones on July 9, 1984, when Ojeda Rios moved to an apartment in El Cortijo, a community adjacent to Levittown. On July 27, 1984, the Government obtained a new surveillance order covering Ojeda Rios' El Cortijo residence. After extensions, that order expired on September 24, 1984. Another surveillance order authorizing surveillance of Ojeda Rios' car, originally entered on May 11, 1984, was extended and finally expired on October 10, 1984. All tapes created during the surveillance of Ojeda Rios were sealed by the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, on October 13, 1984.

As part of the Wells Fargo robbery investigation, the Government obtained a court order on November 1, 1984, authorizing it to wiretap a residence shared by Juan Segarra Palmer and Luz Berrios Berrios in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico. The District Court extended that authorization order each month for seven months, with the last extension expiring on May 30, 1985. The Government also obtained a court order authorizing it to wiretap two public telephones in Vega Baja, effective January 18, 1985. That order expired on February 17, 1985, and due to difficulties in finishing the affidavit necessary to obtain an extension, the Government did not apply for an extension until March 1, 1985. The District Court issued a new order...