United States v. Stowers
| Decision Date | 20 April 2022 |
| Docket Number | 18-12569, No. 18-15289, No. 18-14958, No. 18-14967, No. 19-10703, No. 19-10704, No. 19-10804, No. 19-10805, No. 19-12657, No. 19-13566 |
| Citation | 32 F.4th 1054 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mario Demitric STOWERS, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Carlos Sanchez, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thurston Chadrick Martin, a.k.a. Thurston Chadwick Martin, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leonardo Steeples, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Horace Mayfield, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Horace Mayfield, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Gustavo Melendez, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Stephens Edwin Ivester, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Marvin Junior Teasley, Defendant-Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Nathan Antonio Howard, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Carolyn Cain Burch, Christopher Conrad Bly, Jane Elizabeth McBath, Lawrence R. Sommerfeld, U.S. Attorney Service - Northern District of Georgia, Jennifer Whitfield, U.S. Attorney's Office, Atlanta, GA, William Louis McKinnon, Jr., Law Office of William L. McKinnon, Jr., Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellee in No. 18-12569.
Steven Berne, Atlanta, GA, Matthew Kyle Winchester, Law Offices of Matthew K. Winchester, LLC, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Mario Demitric Stowers.
Carolyn Cain Burch, Jane Elizabeth McBath, Lawrence R. Sommerfeld, U.S. Attorney Service - Northern District of Georgia, U.S. Attorney's Office, Atlanta, GA, William Louis McKinnon, Jr., Law Office of William L. McKinnon, Jr., Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellee in Nos. 18-12569, 18-12569, 18-14967, 19-10703, 19-10704, 19-10804, 19-10805, 19-12657, 19-13566.
Gregory Wayne Lancaster, Buford, GA, Donn Peevy, The Peevy Firm, PC, Lawrenceville, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Carlos Sanchez.
Jay L. Strongwater, Strongwater & Associates, LLC, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Thurston Chadrick Martin.
Bruce Steven Harvey, Law Office of Bruce Harvey, Atlanta, GA, Sam Sliger, McDonald & Cody, LLC, Alto, GA, Leonardo Steeples, FCI Edgefield - Inmate Legal Mail, Edgefield, SC, for Defendant-Appellant Leonardo Steeples.
Samuel Fenn Little, Jr., S. Fenn Little, Jr., PC, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Horace Mayfield.
Robert Alan Glickman, Attorney at Law, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Gustavo Melendez.
Jeffrey Lyn Ertel, Stephanie A. Kearns, Caitlyn Virginia Wade, Federal Defender Program, Inc., Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Stephens Edwin Ivester.
Robert Howard Citronberg, Attorney, Law Office of Robert Citronberg, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Marvin Junior Teasley.
L. Burton Finlayson, Law Office of L. Burton Finlayson, LLC, Atlanta, GA, for Defendant-Appellant Nathan Antonio Howard.
Before Jordan, Brasher, and Anderson, Circuit Judges.
These consolidated appeals require us to answer several questions of first impression about Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, "which regulates the interception of wire, oral, and electronic communications." United States v. Ojeda Rios , 495 U.S. 257, 259, 110 S.Ct. 1845, 109 L.Ed.2d 224 (1990) (citing 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq. ). While investigating a suspected drug trafficking conspiracy, a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent secured a wiretap authorization order from a state judge. The wiretap ultimately implicated the following nine people in the conspiracy: Mario Stowers, Thurston Martin, Leonardo Steeples, Carlos Sanchez, Horace Mayfield, Gustavo Melendez, Stephens Ivester, Marvin Teasley, and Nathan Howard. When federal authorities prosecuted them based on this state-gathered evidence, the defendants asked the district court to suppress it. The district court denied their motions, the defendants pleaded guilty to federal drug crimes, and each defendant expressly reserved his suppression arguments for appeal.1
The defendants make three arguments that the district court should have suppressed this evidence. First, they argue that the state judge did not correctly seal the wiretap recordings as required under Title III. Second, they argue that the government impermissibly delayed sealing the wiretap recordings without providing a satisfactory explanation for that delay. And third, they argue that the state court's wiretap authorization order exceeded its jurisdiction. The government responds that the recordings were validly sealed, that it has satisfactorily explained its delay in sealing, and that the state court did not exceed its jurisdiction. We agree with the government and affirm.
Georgia Bureau of Investigation Agent Clay Bridges led a state investigation into suspected drug crimes. Before applying for a state wiretap, Agent Bridges met with an assistant United States attorney to discuss the investigation becoming a federal case. But at that point, the federal government declined involvement, so Agent Bridges and the district attorney sought state wiretap authorization. Agent Bridges had worked on several wiretap investigations during his twenty-five years of law enforcement, but he had never been the affiant or prepared the application.
Because this was his first time preparing the application, Agent Bridges reviewed the state wiretap law and sought guidance from his superiors, asking for "all the documentation" that they had on obtaining a wiretap. His superiors talked to him about obtaining a wiretap and sent him various materials. The materials included, most importantly, several "go-bys"—or applications, affidavits, and orders from past cases that judges and attorneys had approved and that officers had successfully used. At least some of those "go-by" orders allowed for the recordings to be returned and sealed ten days after the wiretap terminated.
Agent Bridges discussed the language of the "go-bys" with his superior and then used that language to draft the application, affidavit, and order for the first wiretap. His draft order authorized interception for thirty days and required that the recordings be returned within forty days of the order. He sent the drafts to the district attorney, who edited them. Then, together, they presented the application, affidavit, and order to the judge. The judge scrutinized the filings and asked Agent Bridges to change the language in the order to clarify that the recordings had to be returned within ten days of the last interception, not just within forty days of the order. Agent Bridges made that change, and the judge signed the order with the language: "Let return hereof and report as required by law be made before me within forty (40) days of date hereof or ten (10) days from the date of the last interception, whichever is earlier." The authorization also stated that all applications, affidavits, orders, reports, court reporter's notes, tapes, and disks, "and all other matters filed or received herein shall remain sealed until further Order of this Court ... [and] remain in the custody of the Clerk."
That same process happened four more times—three times for additional wiretaps and once to extend the first wiretap. Each time, Agent Bridges prepared the application, affidavit, and order. Each time, the district attorney edited them. And each time, the judge reviewed them and signed the order. All of the orders contained the ten-day-to-return language, and all of the orders were labeled "UNDER SEAL ." Each also stated that the communications would be intercepted at "a designated law enforcement listening post" and that "based on the fact [that the target] is likely to travel out of Georgia during the course of this investigation, the State is authorized to continue to monitor and electronically intercept transmissions to and from the target telephone during any out of state travels."
Based on the language in those five orders plus the examples that he had reviewed, Agent Bridges believed that he would have ten days from the last interception to return the recordings and that they would be sealed when returned. Agent Bridges and other Georgia law enforcement officers set up a listening post in Georgia to monitor the calls in real time, and the calls were recorded and stored in a separate, secure building to which Agent Bridges and the others did not have access. Indeed, to gain access to the building, a person had to display law enforcement identification and then be admitted by an employee with a "prox" card. To get into the server room where the original recordings were stored, a person would have to pass through three prox-card doors. Only three employees had access to the server room; no one could be in the server room without one of those three employees present. And after entering the room, to access the recordings, a person would need a system account, username, and password, and a separate username and password for the program where the original recordings were stored. Only the three employees with access to the room had usernames; none of them were Agent Bridges or the other officers working on the wiretaps in this case.
About a month-and-a-half after starting interceptions, the agents executed fifteen to twenty search warrants and approximately thirty state arrest warrants. Among those arrested were the two defendants who owned the four targeted phones. Shortly after those defendants were arrested, the agents terminated all four wiretaps.
Agent Bridges planned to return the recordings for sealing "once [they] had developed discovery copies, once [they] had perfected the transcripts of certain calls, [and] once [they] had perfected the synopses of certain calls and reviewed them." To get the work done within ten days, Agent Bridges and a state sergeant...
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