Wiretap Evidence OKd for John Walker’s Trial

Evidence obtained by FBI agents who wiretapped John A. Walker Jr.’s telephone and searched his home, office, van and safety deposit box may be used at his coming trial on charges of selling Navy secrets to the Soviet Union, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Alexander Harvey II, concluding two days of pretrial hearings, held that the wiretaps were properly authorized earlier this year by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a special unit set up in 1978 to approve electronic surveillance in national security investigations.

Nor did any physical searches conducted after Walker’s arrest last May in the espionage case violate his constitutional rights, Harvey ruled.

The judge, who will preside at separate trials this fall for Walker, 48, and his son, Michael Lance Walker, a 22-year-old Navy seaman, held in a third ruling Friday that the government’s case against them has not been tainted so far by any prejudicial publicity.

Denying motions by defense attorneys to throw out the charges because of widespread publicity, Harvey said there was no evidence that federal grand jurors who indicted the father-son team had been unduly influenced by national media attention after their arrests in late May.

But the judge said he would reserve judgment until a later date on whether the weight of continuing publicity could prevent fair trials for the men. John Walker is scheduled to be tried Oct. 28 and his son immediately afterward.

Harvey said he had never heard of charges being dropped--as defense attorneys had asked--because of publicity before an indictment was issued. He explained that his own inspection of the grand jury transcripts found no evidence of bias.

The judge conceded to defense lawyers that publicity about the espionage case, which Navy officials have called one of the most damaging in history, has been intensive and nationwide. But he added: “It was not sufficient to vitiate the indictments. We must recognize the right of the media to a free press under the First Amendment.”

Defendants must bear a heavy burden to prove publicity has tainted their cases, “for otherwise people of great notoriety would never be indicted,” Harvey said.