United States v. Hendricks

United States v. Hendricks, 395 F.3d 173 (3d Cir. 2005), expounded that surreptitiously monitored private conversations and statements contained in Title III wiretap recordings are not "testimonial statements" for purposes of Crawford v. Washington. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals noted: (1) the recorded conversations neither fell within nor were analogous to any of the specific examples of testimonial statements mentioned by the Crawford Court; (2) each of the examples referred to by the Crawford Court or the definitions it considered entails a formality to the statement absent from the recorded statements in Hendricks; (3) the Title III recordings cannot be deemed testimonial as the speakers certainly did not make the statements thinking that they would be available for use at a later trial; and (4) the very purpose of Title III intercepts is to capture conversations that the participants believe are not being heard by the authorities and will not be available for use in a prosecution.