Criminal Law – need more info on questions

Scenario:  You are a police officer assigned to a county-wide task force that is investigating major drug trafficking operations in your county. As part of the investigative process, a judge has issued a wiretap order for a suspect’s phone. You are assigned the responsibility of monitoring phone conversations, and you overhear the suspect as well as other individuals who may or may not be involved in the drug ring. Before obtaining enough evidence to arrest and prosecute the suspect, you hear evidence related to other types of criminal activity.

Assignment Guidelines

• Address the following in 900–1,200 words:What constitutional issues are involved in the scenario that dictates what you can and cannot do related to the evidence of other criminal activity outside the scope of the original wiretap order? Explain.If you arrest the other individuals for the crimes not associated with the reasons for the wiretap, what happens to any future evidence that might be obtained from the wiretap? Why? If you fail to arrest the other individuals, are there any potential risks involved? Explain you answer.
• Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.
• Need help especially on bolded questions

Running head: CJUS375-1303A-02 P2IP

P2IP

2

Vis-à-vis Wiretapping

A restrictive body of law, called Title III, governs the interception of telephone calls (Worrall, 2012). If the circumstances of the wire-tapping alter in the progress of an investigation, the Title III authorization will need to be revised (Worrall, 2012). For instance, if while listening to telephone conversations, the law enforcement agency is informed of other acts of criminality, they need to obtain a modification to the initial authorization. Evidence will be suppressed, if every Title III condition is not converged (Worrall, 2012). As an example, assuming that it is brought to the courts’ attention, if a Title III warrant neglects to meticulously show that the telephone calls to be listened to, the evidence developing from the wire-tapping interception will be disallowed in the court of law (Worrall, 2012). A person does not have to require that an expectation of privacy be realistic for the law to defend him/her. “If the government wants to tap any of your phone calls… it has to get a wiretap order (EFF, u. d.).”

The motivation of the Fourth Amendment is to provide us added shelter in opposition to government tapping of someone’s telephone, for the reason that “listening in” intrudes upon the confidentiality of all individuals that the suspect converses with (EFF, u. d.). One of the Constitutional issues involved is the Fourth Amendment’s ban of unwarranted searches and seizures (Pearson-Prentice Hall, u. d.). A question to ask here is, “Does the 4th Amendment protect only the property, such as an individual’s household, or does it protect everything, including telephone conversations, from being seized?” Since the wiretap was an authorized method for attaining evidence, was all evidence of all criminalities obtained by this wiretap allowable in the court of law? The answer is that the wiretap can be used to gather only the evidence listed in the wiretap order. Any evidence of any other criminality has to be addressed through an amended wiretap order (Pearson-Prentice Hall, u. d.).

Even though “listening in” by means of wiretapping, is normally prohibited here in the U. S., the government and thirty-seven states authorize interception of wire-tapping as long as strict guidelines are followed. These rules are intended to safeguard an individual’s privacy and their Fourth Amendment civil rights, even though allowing wiretaps for investigations of serious criminal activity. In other words, it sanctions the attainment of proof that the crime has been/ or is being committed. In addition, noncriminal intelligence gathering is not sanctioned, such as interceptions associated with political or social views (WIRETAP LAWS AND PROCEDURES, 1993).

Every wiretap necessitates a thorough presentation of probable cause. Interrogating known suspects and/or implementing search warrants at their home can significantly endanger an investigation before the whole undertaking is disclosed, thereby, losing the information in the course of interpretation. Arresting someone that is not being legally monitored can have ominous results on the current investigation, because not every Title III condition is being met.

On the other hand, if an arrest is not made, evidence could be permanently lost (Worrall, 2012). If a court order is not given, the content of any wire-tapping exchange is considered as being attained in a Title III infringement. A police officer is not allowed to indiscriminately capture telephone calls, because, under no circumstance, can random and/or mass surveillance be permitted (WIRETAP LAWS AND PROCEDURES, 1993). A police officer has to try to limit the telephone communications that are intercepted to the identified crimes. If the “listening in” does not meet the minimization constraints, all evidence acquired from that wiretap may possibly be prohibited (WIRETAP LAWS AND PROCEDURES, 1993). Because the opportunity “to move to suppress the evidence” needs to be in place, the details of the telephone communications cannot be exploited as substantiation of proof, unless each participant in it has been given notice ten days or more before the court case. This motion to suppress the evidence can be made, because it was not gotten completely within the law (WIRETAP LAWS AND PROCEDURES, 1993).

References

EFF, (u. d.). The SSD Project. Wiretapping law protections. Retrieved July 16, 2013 from

https://ssd.eff.org/wire/govt/wiretapping-protections

Pearson-Prentice Hall, (u. d.). Supreme Court Cases, Constitutional issues. Retrieved July 2013

from

http://www.phschool.com/atschool/ss_web_codes/supreme_court_cases/olmstead.html

WIRETAP LAWS AND PROCEDURES. (September 23, 1993). What happens when the U.S.

Government taps a line, Retrieved July 17, 2013 from

http://faculty.nps.edu/dedennin/publications/WiretapLawsProcedures.txt

Worrall, J., (2012). Criminal Procedure. From first contact to appeal, fourth ed., Search and

Seizure pg. 144-145. Retrieved from

http://wow.coursesmart.com/9781256819004/firstsection