Court junks illegal wiretap evidenceCourt junks illegal wiretap evidence

The Superior Court suppressed tape-recorded evidence obtained through wiretapping that was not sanctioned by a court warrant in connection with a drug case.

Ruling that the CNMI’s Constitution affords greater protection against intrusion to privacy, Associate Judge Juan T. Lizama also junked the evidence because they were obtained without the consent of Jesus A. DeLeon Guerrero, the defendant.

DeLeon Guerrero, through lawyer Matthew T. Gregory, asked the court to suppress the evidence, citing the constitutional prohibition against “wiretapping, electronic eavesdropping or other comparable means of surveillance…except pursuant to a warrant.”

“In this case, the government concedes that it did not have a warrant, so it seems on the surface that the government has no real grounds for opposing this motion to suppress,” Lizama said.

The suppressed evidence consists of separately recorded conversations allegedly between DeLeon Guerrero and a confidential informant cooperating with the CNMI-Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force.

The first conversation was allegedly made through telephone, when the informant sought to purchase illegal drugs from the defendant, the court noted. Lawmen managed to record the conversation between the DeLeon Guerrero and the informant, whom they wired, during an alleged drug transaction at the defendant’s house.

Lizama noted, though, the insistence of the Attorney General’s Office that the consent of one party, the informant, in the conversations exempt the surveillance work from the warrant requirement. The judge, however, disagreed with this.

Lizama noted that, while one-party consent is sufficient for a warrant exemption to conduct wiretapping and similar means of surveillance, the policy is only clear law in Ninth Circuit federal courts.

The AGO contended that 36 American states have statutes allowing wiretapped conversations with the consent of only one party, but Lizama noted that 13 other states have specifically required that all parties consent. Based on court records, the AGO argued that the majority rule should apply in the absence of a Commonwealth statute about the consent issue.

He also ruled against allowing as evidence the transcripts of the improperly recorded conversations.