U.S. v. U.S. District Court for the E. District of Michigan Case Brief Summary | Law Case Explained

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United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan | 407 U.S. 297 (1972)

In general, electronic surveillance and eavesdropping are subject to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. In addition, Title Three of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Street Acts of 1968, otherwise known as the Federal Wiretap Act, imposes statutory requirements on top of constitutional requirements for obtaining electronic search warrants. In the 1972 case United States versus United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the United States Supreme Court considered whether the president could authorize federal wiretaps for national security purposes without first obtaining a warrant under the Fourth Amendment.

In 1968, Lawrence Robert Plamondon co-founded a radical group in Ann Arbor, Michigan, known as the White Panther Party. In the 1970s, Plamondon called members of the Black Panther Party in Berkley and San Francisco, California, whom the federal government had been surveilling through federal wiretaps. Some of the conversations were captured on the electronic devices, and Plamondon incriminated himself and two other men with conspiring to destroy government property and bomb a Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, office in Ann Arbor.

Eventually, Plamondon and the two men were captured and indicted on criminal charges in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Specifically, they were indicted on charges of conspiracy to destroy, and one of them with actually destroying, government property, in violation of Title Eighteen, Section Three-Seventy-One, of the United States Code.

Prior to trial, the defendants filed a motion to compel the United States government to produce evidence that it gathered on the defendants through the use of federal wiretaps. In addition, the defendants moved for a hearing to determine whether that evidence was illegally obtained.

In opposing the motion, the government acknowledged that Plamondon’s conversations were obtained through federal wiretaps. The government also submitted an affidavit from Attorney General John Mitchell that the wiretaps, which were authorized by the president, were necessary for national security purposes. Further, the government argued that the president had the inherent power to authorize wiretaps for national security purposes without first obtaining a warrant.

District Court Judge Keith rejected the government’s claim that the president had the inherent power to authorize federal wiretaps for national security purposes without first obtaining a warrant and granted the motion to compel. The government filed a petition for a writ of mandamus to the Sixth Circuit to compel the judge to vacate the order, which the court denied. The United States Supreme Court granted cert.

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