Crouch

ORDER RE MOTION TO SUPPRESS

Defendant William Fillmore Crouch is charged with conspiracy to commit bank robbery, a violation of 18 U.S.C. section 371 , and possession of a firearm after three previous violent felony convictions, a violation of 18 U.S.C. section 924 (e). The evidence against Crouch was obtained through electronic surveillance utilized during the latter part of an eighteen-month effort to recapture Terry Conner and Joseph Dougherty. Defendant contends that the evidence obtained through the warrant-less wire interceptions must be suppressed because no emergency situation, as defined by 18 U.S.C. section 2518 (7), existed that would permit law enforcement authorities to dispense with the requirement of prior judicial authorization of wire interceptions.

I. FACTS

In June 1985, Joseph Dougherty was a defendant in a bank robbery trial in Oklahoma. When he called prison inmate Terry Conner as a witness, the pair escaped mid-trial. In July, August, and September they committed a series of violent bank robberies in which bank personnel and their families were held hostage. As a result of those crimes, the men were placed on the “Most Wanted” lists of both the United…