People v. Hueston

312 N.E.2d 462, 34 N.Y.2d 116, 356 N.Y.S.2d 272, 1974 N.Y. LEXIS 1618
CourtNew York Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 2, 1974
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 312 N.E.2d 462 (People v. Hueston) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Hueston, 312 N.E.2d 462, 34 N.Y.2d 116, 356 N.Y.S.2d 272, 1974 N.Y. LEXIS 1618 (N.Y. 1974).

Opinion

Rabin, J.

The question presented in this appeal is whether evidence obtained as a result of telephone conversations intercepted pursuant to a warrant should be suppressed. The Appellate Division, apparently holding that the eavesdropping warrant was void on its face, ordered that all evidence obtained as a result of the conversations be suppressed. We reverse.

The defendant Bonnie Kerr (Kerr) was convicted of criminal possession of a dangerous drug in the third degree and in the fourth degree. The defendant Anthony Hueston (Hueston) was convicted of the same crimes, and also of unlawfully using slugs in the second degree. These convictions were obtained after trial in which drugs and slugs seized pursuant to a search warrant were introduced in evidence. The search warrant was based on a supporting affidavit which referred to information obtained as a result of the prior wiretap of defendant Kerr’s telephone pursuant to warrant. The defendants made motions to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the eavesdropping warrant and as a result of the search warrant. The County Court denied both motions, and the Appellate Division held that the conversations were illegally intercepted and that evidence obtained as a result, including the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant, must be suppressed.

The eavesdropping warrant on Kerr’s telephone was also the subject of judicial decision in United States v. Eastman (465 F. 2d 1057). Hueston was indicted with Gordon Eastman in the United States District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania, for the manufacture of drugs in violation of Federal statutes. The evidence obtained in the Federal prosecution was derived in part from the conversations intercepted by New York police pursuant to the warrant in question here. In Eastman, the United States Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the District Court suppressing the evidence obtained as a result of the intercepted conversations. Though discussing several grounds for suppression, the Eastman court stated that “ the touchstone ” of its decision was that the case was “ not one in which an inventory was delayed but rather [was] one in which specific provisions of Title HI were deliberately and advertently not followed. In other words the failure to file the notice or inventory [was] no mere ministerial act. It resulted from a [119]*119judicial act which on its face deliberately flouted and denigrated the provisions of Title III designated for the protection of the public.” (465 F. 2d, at p. 1062.)

The Appellate Division adopted this reasoning in reversing and suppressing the evidence: For the reasons stated by the United States Court of Appeals [in Eastman], we think that the County Court erred in its denial of defendants’ motion to suppress the communications intercepted pursuant to the eavesdropping warrant [citation omitted].” (People v. Hueston, 42 A D 2d 860, 861.) The People appeal the order pursuant to permission granted by Justice Latham of the Appellate Division. With due respect for the authority of the Eastman case, we are not convinced that its reasoning should be followed.

Two principal objections to the use of the intercepted conversations are presented for our consideration: (1) that the eavesdropping warrant is void on its face; and (2) that the failure of the prosecution to give notice of the warrant, as required by the former Code of Criminal Procedure (§ 823) and title 18 of the United States Code (§ 2518, subd. [8], par. [d]) renders any evidence obtained from the eavesdropping inadmissible.

The defendants’ claim that the warrant is void on its face because its concluding sentence provided: “ That notice to the said Tony De Jeste and Bonnie Kerr is hereby expressly waived.” The warrant, signed by since deceased Justice Hoyt, was dated June 2, 1969. At that time section 823 of the Code of Criminal Procedure required that written notice of the issuance of the warant and the period of authorized interception be given to the persons named in the warrant within 60 days after the termination of the original eavesdropping warrant or any renewals thereof.1

[120]*120The People maintain, inter alia, that the waiver in the warrant was not intended to dispense with the postterruination notice required by section 823. Bather they contend that the obvious purpose of the statement was to eliminate the giving of any advance notice of the warrant to the respondents at the time the warrant was executed.” (Emphasis added.) The two dissenting Justices in the Appellate Division also interpreted the statements as dispensing with prior or contemporaneous notice, not with ultimate notice. While we find this interpretation strained, since the code had no requirement of advance or prior notice with respect to eavesdropping warrants to be “ expressly waived ”, we find it unnecessary to resolve this ambiguity. Even assuming that the warrant language purported to waive the posttermination notice, we find that the statement was a nullity and that the warrant was valid.

Briefly, the statute entitles the defendants and any other civilian, to posttermination notice of the eavesdropping. This guarantee of notice remains effective regardless of any statement in a warrant to the contrary; and any prosecution attempt to rely upon the language in the warrant as granting a dispensation from the statutory notice requirement would be futile. Equally futile is a defendant’s attempt to rely upon a statement of waiver in the warrant, if the prosecution in fact gave the required notice. In short, the guarantee we are concerned with here applies to the notice itself, not to the wording of the warrant; and consequently, to suppress the evidence, a defendant must show a failure of notice (see People v. Tartt, 71 Misc 2d 955, 959, 961). This brings us to the more serious irregularity here, the prosecution’s failure to give notice.

The People admit that they did not give the written posttermination notice required by the statute. While we may assume that the lack of such notice might ordinarily require suppression of the evidence obtained as a result of the warrant (see People v. Tartt, 71 Misc 2d 955, supra), we believe that the special circumstances present in this case compel a different conclusion.

In papers dated September 26, 1969, the defendants moved for an order directing the District Attorney “■ to furnish to the defendants a copy of the Affirmations and/or Affidavits used in support of obtaining a Wire Tap Order, the Wire Tap Order [121]*121itself and the return on the Wire Tap Order The defendants therefore had actual notice, of the existence of the warrant at least by September 26, 78 days following July 10, the termination date of the warrant as extended. While the statute requiring notice to be given within 60 days of the expiration of the warrant was in effect when the warrant was issued on June 2, 1969, this statute was replaced effective June 25, 1969 with a statute requiring notification within 90 days of the expiration of the warrant. Thus, the 90-day requirement took effect in the midst of the eavesdropping which was authorized through July 10, 1969 by the warrant as extended.

The change from 60 to 90 days was part of the addition of title III to the Code of Criminal Procedure, which revamped the New York eavesdropping scheme following the enactment by Congress of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (U. S. Code, tit.

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Bluebook (online)
312 N.E.2d 462, 34 N.Y.2d 116, 356 N.Y.S.2d 272, 1974 N.Y. LEXIS 1618, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-hueston-ny-1974.