Osborn v. United States

1967-01-23

Headline: Ruling upholds lawyer’s conviction and allows a secretly recorded conversation by an informant authorized by judges, permitting such tape evidence and rejecting entrapment and impossibility defenses on these facts.

Holding: The Court affirmed the lawyer’s conviction, holding that a conversation secretly recorded by an informant with prior judicial authorization was admissible and that entrapment and impossibility defenses failed on the facts.

Real World Impact:

Allows judge-authorized informant recordings as trial evidence.
Affirms convictions based on taped corroboration of informer testimony.
Leaves entrapment questions primarily for juries to decide.

Topics: privacy and surveillance, electronic eavesdropping, jury tampering, criminal investigations

Summary

Background

A Nashville lawyer was accused of trying to bribe a prospective juror in a federal criminal case. He had hired a local investigator who, unknown to the lawyer, was cooperating with federal agents. After the investigator swore out an affidavit saying the lawyer discussed a plan to buy a juror’s vote, two federal judges authorized hiding a tape recorder on the investigator to see whether the affidavit was true.

Reasoning

The Court reviewed whether the secretly made recording could be used at trial and whether the lawyer was entrapped. The judges who considered the matter authorized the recording after seeing a sworn affidavit alleging a specific crime that threatened the integrity of their court. The Court held that, on these facts, the recording made by one participant with prior judicial authorization was properly admitted. The jury was entitled to weigh entrapment, and the Court rejected the lawyer’s argument that the offense was impossible because the investigator never actually approached the juror.

Real world impact

The decision affirms that narrowly authorized recordings made by a cooperating person can be admissible to prove wrongdoing, and it confirms that claims of entrapment are usually for juries to decide. It also upholds conviction under the statute that makes any corrupt “endeavor” to influence jurors a crime, even if the plan never reached the juror.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Douglas dissented, warning that the case illustrates alarming breaches of privacy by government agents and argued the Court should bar such electronic testimonial evidence to protect personal privacy and liberty.