Maggie Jo Adams, AKA Maggie Jo Koza v. George W. Sumner, Director, Nevada Department of Prisons Brian McKay Attorney General

Is evidence obtained from continued eavesdropping by a hotel operator who inadvertently intercepts a telephone call admissible under the Federal Wiretapping Statute?

I

On October 24, 1980, John Schweizer was murdered while driving his taxi in Las Vegas. On November 5, 1980, a clerk at a Las Vegas hotel had been connecting a telephone call to Maggie Jo Adams’ hotel room when he inadvertently heard one of the parties mention a gun. He continued to listen and heard a man and woman discuss shooting someone in a ear. The clerk notified the police. Upon searching the room occupied by Adams and her husband, they found three guns, including one that a firearms examiner concluded definitely had killed Schweizer. At the scene of the murder, the police also found Adams’ handprint in Schweizer’s taxi.

The police interrogated Adams upon her arrest but ceased once she asked to speak to an attorney. On the next day, the police brought her into an interrogation room, advised her of her Miranda rights, and told her that they had evidence of her participation in the murder. Adams then confessed to three murders, two of which victims were Schweizer and a Thomas Harding. She also told the police…