United States v. Judith Emily Bissell

Appellant was indicted, tried by a jury, and convicted on a two count indictment of a conspiracy to willfully and unlawfully injure the property of the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1361 and of willfully and knowingly possessing an unregistered destructive device in violation of 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861 (d) and 5871.

Appellant filed many pretrial and post-trial motions concerning allegedly illegal electronic surveillance. Appellant sought the disclosure of allegedly illegally obtained wiretaps, hearing on electronic surveillance matters to determine issues of legality, standing and sufficiency of disclosure and a plenary taint hearing to determine if any or all of the government’s evidence was inadmissible as the fruit of an illegal wiretap. After the post-trial hearing, the district court held that the evidence presented at the trial was not tainted by any illegal electronic surveillance and that any further disclosure would serve no purpose. Appellant contends that a remand is necessary so that constitutionally mandated procedures can be followed in resolving the wiretap issues.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Appellant and her husband, both active members of the…