People v. Wojtkowski

In People v. Wojtkowski (1985) 167 Cal. App. 3d 1077, the defendant was arrested for spousal battery and related charges. The defendant called his wife several times and his wife recorded the conversations. A detective had installed a recorder on her telephone and she was advised to record any conversation with the defendant. The police told her that the purpose of the recording was to locate the defendant, to allow them to protect her if the defendant threatened her, and to record the defendant's admissions, if any. ( Id. at p. 1079.) The defendant asserted that the recordings violated his Miranda and Massiah rights. The appellate court disagreed, noting that the relationship between the defendant and his wife was adversarial because he knew she would be the main witness against him. It said: "No breach of trust by a false friend is involved when an accused initiates a conversation to intimidate the prosecuting witness against him from testifying." ( People v. Wojtkowski, supra, 167 Cal. App. 3d 1077, 1082.) The court also found that the police "did not intentionally create a situation where defendant was likely to make incriminating statements." (Ibid.) Finally, the court found that the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in talking to the prosecution witness because the defendant does not have "a constitutionally protected expectation that the victim he is trying to intimidate will not betray him by recording the conversation." ( Id. at p. 1083.) Accordingly, the court found no Miranda or Massiah violation.