Zweibon v. Mitchell

• Decision Date: 09 February 1978
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 2025-71.
• Citation: 444 F. Supp. 1296
• Parties: Bertram ZWEIBON et al., Plaintiffs, v. John N. MITCHELL et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

444 F. Supp. 1296

Bertram ZWEIBON et al., Plaintiffs, v. John N. MITCHELL et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 2025-71.

United States District Court, District of Columbia, Civil Division.

February 9, 1978.

Nathan Lewin, Washington, D. C., for plaintiffs.

Earl Kaplan, Edward S. Christenbury, Kevin T. Maroney, Benjamin C. Flannagan, IV, R. John Seibert, Larry L. Gregg, Dept. of Justice, Washington, D. C., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHN H. PRATT, District Judge.

This action is before the Court upon defendants' renewed motion for summary judgment. To facilitate an appreciation of the issues currently before this Court, we believe it appropriate to present the background of this litigation.

A. History of this Action.

This civil damage action constitutes a challenge to warrantless electronic surveillance of the offices of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) conducted by personnel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation¹ in October 1970 and from January 5 through July 3, 1971, as authorized by then-Attorney General John N. Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell authorized the surveillances during a period of JDL harassment of personnel of the Soviet Union located in New York City, ostensibly in an effort to protect the ability of the President to conduct and maintain peaceful relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. Plaintiffs argue that the warrantless surveillances violated their statutory rights under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2510-2520 (hereinafter Title III) and under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985, and their constitutional rights under the Fourth Amendment.

This Court on July 20, 1973 dismissed the action, entering summary judgment for defendants and denying plaintiffs' cross-motion for partial summary judgment on the issue of liability. 363 F.Supp. 936 (D.D.C. 1973). We determined that the surveillance was conducted pursuant to the President's national security powers and therefore was not cognizable under Title III or under the Fourth Amendment. 363 F.Supp. at 942-44. Our holding was reversed by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit en banc, a majority concluding that the Fourth Amendment required a warrant and a plurality determining that Title III also mandated the issuance of a warrant in the circumstances presented in the subject case. Zweibon v. Mitchell, 170 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 516 F.2d 594 (1975) (en banc), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 944, 96 S.Ct. 1684, 48 L.Ed.2d 187 (1976). In its remand of the case to this Court, the Court of Appeals directed our attention to defendants' interposition of three affirmative defenses to an assessment of liability: (1) whether the Court's determination that the wiretaps were illegally instituted should be applied to establish liability for activity antedating the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972) (hereinafter Keith), if the determination in this case were based upon the Keith decision; (2) whether the doctrine of official immunity insulated these defendants from liability for these actions performed in their official capacities; and (3) whether damage relief should be denied because defendants acted in the good faith belief that their actions were lawful. 170 U.S.App.D.C. at 13, 516 F.2d at 607, n. 18.

Defendants have not advanced the second defense in their renewed motion for summary judgment, preferring to reserve this issue until the Supreme Court rules on the question of official immunity in a constitutional tort context in Butz v. Economou, 535 F.2d 688 (2d Cir. 1976), cert. granted, 429 U.S. 1089, 97 S.Ct. 1097, 51 L.Ed.2d 534 (1977). See Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Defendants' Renewed Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment, at 27, n. 18. We therefore decline to consider and evaluate the immunity defense at this time.

The third defense, that of good faith, is likewise not reached by the Court at this time.²

B. Analysis.

We therefore direct our attention to the issue of retroactive application of the Keith decision, framed by our Court of Appeals as follows:

"If the illegality of these wiretaps is based upon the Supreme Court's decision in Keith, . . . there are strong factors which dictate that that decision should not be applied retroactively in this damage suit, which is based upon surveillance which occurred before the date of that decision."

170 U.S.App.D.C. at 13, 516 F.2d at 607, n. 18.

As a preliminary and necessary inquiry to our analysis of the retroactivity question, we note that the en banc Court of Appeals has found that "this case does indeed involve the foreign affairs of this country and therefore falls outside the holding in Keith and into the area it reserved for future disposition." 170 U.S.App.D.C. at 58, 516 F.2d at 652. Although the Court recognized that Zweibon presented an issue which the Keith decision had reserved for future disposition, it relied upon the Keith rationale to conclude that a warrant should have been secured before these electronic surveillances were instituted. Zweibon v. Mitchell, supra, 170 U.S.App.D.C. at 58-59, 516 F.2d at 652-53.

(1) Constitutional cause of action. We therefore turn our attention to the criteria summarized and endorsed by the Supreme Court in Chevron Oil v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 106-07, 92 S.Ct. 349, 355, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971), for determining whether the ruling of the Court of Appeals should be applied prospectively only or whether liability should be assessed in this action. The Court presented the following guidelines:

"First, the decision to be applied nonretroactively must establish a new principle of law, either by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied, or by deciding an issue of first impression whose resolution was not clearly foreshadowed. Second, it has been stressed that `we must . . . weigh the merits and demerits in each case by looking to the prior history of the rule in question, its purpose and effect, and whether retrospective operation will further or retard its operation.' Finally, we have weighed the inequity imposed by retroactive application, for `where a decision of this Court could produce substantial inequitable results if applied retroactively, there is ample basis in our cases for avoiding the "injustice or hardship" by a holding of nonretroactivity.'" citations and quotations omitted.

We have concluded that application of these criteria compels a determination that this decision should be applied prospectively only and that civil damage liability for the illegal electronic surveillance should not be assessed in this action. We analyze the Chevron criteria consecutively.

(a) New principle of law. First, we believe that the Zweibon decision established a new principle of law. The necessity of securing a warrant prior to the institution of electronic surveillance of domestic organizations in situations where the national security is involved had not been judicially determined prior to its presentation in this litigation.³ In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 358, n. 23, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), while holding for the first time that the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment was applicable to electronic surveillances, specifically reserved the question of the applicability of the warrant requirements to national security surveillances. Undeniably, at the time these wiretaps were installed in 1970 and 1971, the question of their legality had not (and still has not) been adjudicated by the Supreme Court. Not until 1972 did the Supreme Court, in a matter of first impression, determine that the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment were applicable to domestic security surveillances. Keith, supra, 407 U.S. at 299, 92 S.Ct. 2125. Finally, in 1975, this case presented for the first time the question of the applicability of the warrant requirements for domestic national security surveillances. This is the first case to draw a distinction between the types of foreign security surveillances.

Furthermore, we conclude that the Court of Appeals' resolution of this controversy was not "clearly foreshadowed" at the time these surveillances were instituted over seven years ago. In fact, caselaw and historical precedent at that time indicated that a contrary resolution would be forthcoming from any court reviewing warrantless wiretaps in the national security — and particularly the foreign security — context. District courts had consistently held that a warrant was not required in such circumstances. See United States v. O'Neal, Cr. No. KC CR 1204 (D.Kan., Dec. 1, 1970); United States v. Dellinger, No. 69 CR 180 (N.D.Ill., Feb. 20, 1970). See also United States v. Smith, 321 F.Supp. 424, 429 (C.D. Cal.1971) (applicability of warrant requirement to foreign national security surveillances reserved, although warrant mandated for domestic security surveillances). In addition, warrantless national security electronic surveillances had been consistently conducted for more than 25 years by Attorneys General without judicial or Congressional intrusion. See Keith, supra, at 299. It is in recognition of these considerations that we reach our determination that the facts of this case satisfy the first part of the Chevron test.⁴

(b) Purpose and effect of the rule. For our analysis of the remaining two factors of the Chevron retroactivity test, we rely heavily upon the well reasoned memorandum of Judge Gasch in Sinclair v. Kleindienst, No. 610-73 at 6 (D.D.C. Sept. 23, 1977), analyzing the question of retroactive application of Zweibon in the context of domestic security surveillances. We believe that the purposes of the Fourth Amendment will not be advanced by a retroactive application of the Court of Appeals' determination that a warrantless domestic national security electronic surveillance is unconstitutional. The effect of the Court's...