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Criminal Law Keyed to Kadish
Scott v. United States
Citation:
436 U.S. 128 (1978)Facts
In January 1970, government officials obtained court authorization to wiretap a telephone registered to Geneva Jenkins, based on probable cause that the phone was being used in furtherance of a narcotics conspiracy. The court order required agents to minimize the interception of non-pertinent communications. During the month-long surveillance, agents intercepted virtually all calls made on the telephone. After the surveillance ended, Scott, Thurmon, and others were indicted for various narcotics offenses. The supervising agent admitted they made no attempt to minimize interceptions except when they discovered the wiretap had been inadvertently connected to the wrong line. Forty percent of the intercepted calls were narcotics-related, while the remaining calls were mostly short, wrong-number calls, calls to unavailable persons, or ambiguous conversations. Some non-pertinent calls were between Jenkins and her mother, though some of these contained statements that could be interpreted as related to the conspiracy.
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