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Non-Governmental Interception of Phone Calls Requires Suppression

By Jonathan Byrne

US v. Crabtree: Crabtree was on supervised release, living with his girlfriend. When she became suspicious about Crabtree's relationship with his ex-wife, she began taping his phone calls. Among other things, the calls showed Crabtree threatened to burn down the ex's home and truck (I assume - it's difficult to say whether the threat was to the ex or the girlfriend, from the way the opinion is written) and set up a third party to be arrested. The girlfriend called Crabtree's probation officer to report that she was throwing him out of the house and turned over the recordings. Crabtree was charged with 13 supervised release violations, the most serious of which sprang from the recorded phone calls. After considering those recordings, the district court revoked Crabtree's term of supervised release and sentenced him to 24 months in prison...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Circuit Blog on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).