Case No. 17-43| 10th Cir. Decision
Los Dahda was fined over sixteen million dollars and sentenced to prison for crimes stemming from an alleged marijuana distribution network in Kansas. The operation was manned by over forty individuals who sourced marijuana from California. Dahda’s role was as an importer and dealer. The government began investigating this drug network in 2011. As a part of that investigation, the government used wiretaps on the cell phones of the suspected members of the network. Those wiretaps were used to convict Dahda on fifteen counts. Dahda appealed his convictions to the Tenth Circuit.
Under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, judges are authorized to issue a wiretap order “within the territorial jurisdiction of the court in which the judge is sitting (and outside that jurisdiction but within the United States in the case of a mobile interception device authorized by a Federal court within such jurisdiction).” 18 U.S.C. §2518(3). Here, nine wiretap orders were issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The orders did not include a geographic limitation on the locations of the listening posts or cell phones and therefore allowed interception to occur outside of the district court’s territorial jurisdiction.
The Tenth Circuit agreed with Dahda that the wiretap orders exceeded the district court’s territorial jurisdiction, but stated that the territorial defect did not warrant the suppression of the evidence. The court held that suppression is mandated only for a violation of the statutory requirements that “directly and substantially implement the congressional intention to limit the use of” wiretapping. United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505, 527 (1974).
The Supreme Court, in Giordano, reasoned that not every violation of Title III’s requirements result in an unlawful interception under the statute. The Tenth Circuit, using the Supreme Court’s reasoning, held that even though some wiretap orders may be facially insufficient, that defect alone does not directly and substantially affect the congressional intention to limit wiretapping. The Tenth Circuit laid out two congressional “core concerns”: (1) protecting the privacy of wire and oral communications, and (2) delineating on a uniform basis the circumstances and conditions under which the interception of wire and oral communications may be authorized. The court held that territorial-jurisdiction limitation did not implicate these core congressional concerns—as it was not mentioned in the legislative history of the Act—and thus did not require suppression of evidence. Dahda argues that the “core concern” reasoning, which he notes is extratextual, does not apply to motions to suppress that are insufficient on their face.
The Court will have to revisit the text of Title III to determine how a congressionally-supplied exclusionary rule should be interpreted in this statutory scheme.