Appellants Khamone Luangkhot, Isaac Saleumsy, and Santi-souk Phommachanh, along with approximately 34 others, were indicted in Gwinnett County in connection with an alleged ecstacy trafficking ring. The indictments resulted from a multi-jurisdictional investigation led by the Atlanta High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force and conducted in collaboration with state prosecutors. As part of the investigation, the Gwinnett County District Attorney obtained a series of investigative warrants from Gwinnett County Superior Court authorizing the interception of telephone conversations from 18 different telephone lines. Prior to trial, Appellants moved to suppress the evidence investigators had obtained through these wiretaps, contending that the Gwinnett court lacked jurisdiction to issue the warrants. The motions were denied, and, on interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed. Luangkhot v. State,
The material facts are not in dispute. The indictments alleged that the narcotics distribution ring in which Appellants were involved was operating out of Gwinnett County. The HIDTA “wire room,” the listening post from which the communications were intercepted, was located in Fulton County. As to the telephones that were monitored, the State did not attempt to prove that any of them were ever used in
Based on these facts, the issue presented is whether the Gwin-nett County Superior Court possessed the authority, solely by virtue of its having jurisdiction over the crimes, to authorize interceptions conducted outside its judicial circuit boundaries. Because the issue presented is a question of law involving undisputed facts, our standard of review is de novo. Wilder v. State,
1. In the construction of statutes,
the courts shall look diligently for the intention of the General Assembly. In so doing, the ordinary signification shall be applied to all words. Where the language of a statute is plain and susceptible to only one natural and reasonable construction, courts must construe the statute accordingly. ... In addition, when we are interpreting a statute, we must presume that the General Assembly had full knowledge of the existing state of the law and enacted the statute with reference to it. We construe statutes in connection and in harmony with the existing law, and as a part of a general and uniform system of jurisprudence, and their meaning and effect is to be determined in connection, not only with the common law and the constitution, but also with reference to other statutes and the decisions of the courts.
Chase v. State,
The Georgia wiretap statute provides:
Upon written application, under oath, of the prosecuting attorney having jurisdiction over prosecution of the crime under investigation, or the Attorney General, made before a judge of superior court, said court may issue an investigation warrant permitting the use of [a wiretapping] device ... for the surveillance of such person or place to the*425 extent the same is consistent with and subject to the terms, conditions, and procedures provided for by Chapter 119 of Title 18 of the United States Code Annotated, as amended.
OCGA § 16-11-64 (c) (2011). The statute thus confers the power to issue wiretap warrants generally on superior court judges. Although the statute contains no express restrictions on which superior courts are empowered to issue wiretap warrants in a particular case, it does incorporate by reference the “terms, conditions, and procedures provided for by” the federal wiretap statute. Id.
This provision incorporating the federal law was added to the statute as part of Georgia’s Support of the War on Terrorism Act of 2002. See Ga. L. 2002, p. 1432, § 1. In the 2002 amendments to the wiretap statute, the legislature deleted eight subparagraphs of procedural standards and replaced them with a single paragraph referring to the federal law. Compare Ga. L. 2002, p. 1432, § 3 (enacting current OCGA § 16-11-64 (b) & (c)), with Ga. L. 2000, p. 491, § 2 (former OCGA § 16-11-64 (b)). It thus appears that these amendments were intended to streamline Georgia’s rules in this area and harmonize them with federal standards. Though we have long recognized that state-authorized wiretaps must comply with both federal and state statutory requirements, see Ellis v. State,
2. The federal law governing the use of wiretaps resides in Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 USC §§ 2510-2522 (Chapter 119). See Evans,
Title III confers the authority to issue wiretap warrants on “a State court judge of competent jurisdiction.” 18 USC § 2516 (2). This term is defined in the statute as “a judge of any court of general criminal jurisdiction of a State who is authorized by a statute of that State to enter orders authorizing interceptions of wire, oral, or electronic communications.” 18 USC § 2510 (9) (b). The federal statute thus delegates to each state the determination of which of its courts are empowered to issue wiretap warrants. Adams v. Lankford,
Regarding the scope of the wiretap order, the federal statute provides that the order may “authoriz[e] or approv[e] interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications within the territorial jurisdiction of the court in which the judge is sitting.” 18USC§2518(3). Accordingly, which court may authorize a wiretap warrant in a particular case turns on the meaning of the terms “interception” and “territorial jurisdiction.” See Evans,
3. In Evans, we held that the site of the “interception” was the listening post from which the subject phone calls were overheard. Evans,
Since we issued our opinion in Evans, the federal definition of “intercept” has been expanded to encompass “the aural or other acquisition of the contents of” targeted communications. 18 USC § 2510 (4) (emphasis supplied). This broadening of the definition was part of Congress’ effort to “expand the scope of [the federal statute] to extend its protections to modern forms of communication,” such as “electronic pagers, electronic mail, and computer-to-computer communications.” United States v. Rodriguez, 968 F2d 130, 136 (2d Cir. 1992). Thus, under the current version of Title III, “interceptions” of phone calls are deemed to occur not only at the listening post where the communications are overheard (“aural acquisition”), but also at the situs of the tapped phone from which the contents of the communications are being redirected (“other acquisition”). Id. at 135-136. Accord 8A Federal Procedure, Lawyers Edition, § 22:270 (Dec. 2012); Davis v. State, 43 A3d 1044, 1051-1052 (Md. 2012) (collecting cases
4. The “territorial jurisdiction” over which a court has authority depends entirely on state law. Adams, 788 F2d at 1499-1500. In Georgia, “[t]he territorial jurisdiction of a judge of the superior courts is the judicial circuit in which he presides.” Granese v. State,
The State contends that our wiretap statute’s general language permitting “a judge of superior court. . . [to] issue an investigative warrant,” OCGA § 16-11-64 (c), should be construed as making as an express grant of authority to our State’s superior courts to authorize wiretaps for interceptions conducted outside their judicial circuits. However, we cannot ascribe such meaning to this statutory language in the absence of evidence, textual or otherwise, indicating the legislature’s intent to grant such broad authority. If our legislature had intended to grant superior courts the authority to issue wiretap warrants effective for interceptions outside their circuits, it could have done so explicitly, as it has done in other areas. For example, warrants for the production of stored wire and electronic communications have been expressly afforded “state-wide application.” OCGA § 16-11-66.1 (c). Notably, this latter Code section was enacted as part of the same anti-terrorism legislation that amended the wiretap statute. See Ga. L. 2002, pp. 1432, 1434, §§ 3,4. The omission of any reference to “statewide application” in the wiretap statute, where such reference was included in a related statutory provision enacted in the same bill, militates against a broad construction of the territorial scope of wiretap warrants. See Inagawa v. Fayette County,
Judgments reversed.
Notes
In the words of the trial court, “there is no evidence that all of the phones for which wiretaps were authorized were used in Gwinnett [C]ounty.”
The term “aural” is defined in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary as “of or relating to the ear or to the sense of hearing.”
We also reject the State’s contention that wiretap warrants should have a broader territorial reach, because Georgia’s wiretap statute has evolved from focusing on the jurisdiction “wherein the [listening] device is to be physically placed,” see Ga.L. 1972, p. 615, § 1, to the jurisdiction in which the crimes are being prosecuted, see OCGA § 16-11-64 (c). Though the State is correct that the statute previously made reference to placement of the listening device, we fail to discern how this change, by itself, affects the determination of where the “interception” is deemed to occur for jurisdictional purposes.
Because our wiretap statute gives the authority to seek wiretap warrants only to the Attorney General or the “prosecuting attorney having jurisdiction over prosecution of the crime,” the question arises whether the district attorney from the judicial circuit where the crime is being investigated has the authority to make a wiretap application to a court outside his circuit. For example, in this case, could the Gwinnett County District Attorney have sought a wiretap warrant in Fulton County Superior Court? The answer is unclear; as we have noted, “no extant statute or constitutional provision purports to deal with the scope of a district attorney’s authority.” Wiggins v. Lemley,