USA v. FERNANDEZ
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in USA v. FERNANDEZ, No. 06-50595, a criminal appeal. The panel consisted of Alfred T. Goodwin, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain, and William A. Fletcher, Circuit Judges.
O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge:
We must decide whether evidence obtained from an authorized wiretap investigation must be suppressed where the government continued to intercept a named target’s conversations despite his adoption of a new alias. I A At the heart of this case are six wiretap orders obtained by Drug Enforcement Agency investigators between May and October 2003 as part of an investigation of a drug trafficking conspiracy. At the outset of the investigation, the officers believed that the conspiracy was headed by an individual named Enrique Mendoza, and thus the first four wiretap applications submitted to the district court by the government named Mendoza, among others, as a target. While intercepting a conversation on August 8, 2003, the investigators for the first time learned that “Enrique Mendoza” was merely an alias used by their target suspect; they concluded that he adopted a new alias “Jorge Acosta,” based on their recognition of his voice. In their subsequent status reports and wiretap applications to the district court, the investigators gave detailed reports of intercepted calls involving “Acosta,” but they did not inform the district court of their belief that “Mendoza” and “Acosta” were the same person. Rather, the government’s subsequent wiretap applications . . .