CRIMINAL LAW IN BERGEN AND PASSAIC COUNTIES: SUPPRESSION OF INTERCEPTION PHONE CONVERSATION

Recently, a defendant in a murder prosecution in Bergen County obtained a significant ruling from a trial judge that suppressed damning phone conversation subject of the government's wiretaps.

The core of this controversy is simple to state.  During the course of a judicially authorized wiretap, the government intercepted and recorded a sensitive communication between the defendant and his trial lawyer.  To confound the problem, the government agent who was responsible to monitor calls of this nature did not report the recordation of the call to his superiors or the judge who issued the original wiretap order.

As a result of these events, defendant filed a motion to dismiss the indictment claiming that the attorney/client privilege had been severely compromised.  The trial court refused to dismiss the indictment because it concluded that the recording of the  conversation between defendant and his attorney was inadvertent.  Notwithstanding, the court decided to suppress the conversation subject of the defendant's motion and all other recorded conversations that followed.  The basis of the trial court's ruling was that under New Jersey's Wiretap Act, all conversations that followed any violation of the act must be suppressed.