Case o' The Week: Voice ID "All Right" by Ninth - Ortiz, FRE 901, and (Cross-Language) Voice Identifications

  The kids are all right.

  Richard Ortiz – well, less so.

United States v. Ortiz, 2015 WL 294305 (9th Cir. Jan. 23, 2015), decision available here.

Players: Decision by Judge Tallman, joined by Judges McKeown and Owens.

Facts: Ortiz was charged with being part of a large Mexican drug trafficking organization. Id. at *1. Ortiz has been released on another federal charge, and was dealing for the organization while on supervised release. Id. 

   His probation officer – who spoke Spanish “a little” – had spoken with Ortiz six to ten times while he was on supervision, and had met him ten to fifteen times, but had only spoken to him in English. Id. 

   During the trial, and over defense objection, this P.O. was called to identify Ortiz’s voice on wiretaps, as he spoke Spanish. Id. The P.O. testified that she recognized English phrases in the call, like “all right” as a distinctive tendency of Ortiz. Id. 

  Ortiz was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years. Id.

Issue(s): “Ortiz contends the district court erred in admitting the opinion testimony of his United States probation officer, Angela McGlynn, identifying Ortiz’s voice speaking primarily Spanish on wiretapped calls because McGlynn does not speak Spanish and had only heard Ortiz speak English.” Id. at *1 (fn. omitted).

Held: “We have never before determined whether a person who has not heard the speaker in a specific language and speaks only “a little” of the language herself, but also recognized the voice from a handful of English words in the taped conversations plus multiple other English conversations, has the ‘requisite familiarity’ to authenticate a voice under [FRE] 901(b)(5). Id. at *2. Here, [the Probation Officer’s] familiarity with Ortiz’s voice was substantially more than the minimal familiarity Rule 902(b)(1)(5) requires for admission of lay identification testimony.” Id. at *3. “Since we hold the district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling on the authentication of his voice on the recordings, we affirm Ortiz’s conviction.” Id.

Of Note: The standard of review, for the Ninth's analysis, is “abuse of discretion.” Id. at *2. Judge Tallman quotes from the seminal ‘09 Hinkson en banc decision, explaining that the Ninth will uphold the evidentiary ruling unless it is “illogical, implausible, or without support in inferences that may be drawn from the facts in the record.” Id. at *2. Hinkson's abuse-of-discretion test is a forgiving standard, with much deference afforded to the district judge. Of historical interest: the D.J. in Hinkson case was Judge Tallman, sitting by designation. See blog here. 

How to Use: The voice I.D. in Ortiz – well, it stinks. The prosecutor first specifically asked the Probation Officer if she could recognize Ortiz’s voice – then played the P.O. the calls. Not surprisingly, the P.O. identified Ortiz. Id. at *2 n.3 Why wasn’t this identification procedure unduly suggestive (thus violating due process) under Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188, 199 (1972)? Maybe it was – but Ortiz didn’t raise it before the district court or in his opening brief, and the Ninth finds the issue waived. Id. at *2 n.3. Beware of the suggestive ID issue lurking with voice-identification issues (and raise the early!)

                                               

For Further Reading: Eric McDavid was sentenced to twenty years on federal charges, despite a vigorous trial defense that he was entrapped by the FBI’s young female informant. 

  After he served years in federal prison, a slew of documents have now appeared revealing that the informant, Anna, exchanged love letters with her target (a romance denied and downplayed by prosecutors in the trial). It turns out that the FBI had in fact ordered a polygraph of Anna while she was working on McDavid– then mysteriously cancelled it. (The name of the AUSA who signed off on the polygraph has now been redacted). Brady / Giglio evidence, that went to the heart of a vigorous entrapment defense, never disclosed during a very high profile federal trial?

   For a compelling piece on a very troubling prosecution in the ED Cal, see Ben Rosenfeld, Eric McDavid Deserves Answers from Federal Officials Who Kept Information from Him at Trial, available here. 

Image of “The Kids are All Right” from http://www.listal.com/viewimage/4475458

Steven Kalar, Federal Public Defender, N.D. Cal. Website at www.ndcalfpd.org

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