Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-13-30361/USCOURTS-ca9-13-30361-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Richard Anthony Ortiz
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

RICHARD ANTHONY ORTIZ,

Defendant-Appellant.

No. 13-30361

D.C. No. 

2:12-cr-00062-

RSL-28

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Washington

Robert S. Lasnik, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

December 11, 2014—Seattle, Washington

Filed January 23, 2015

Before: M. Margaret McKeown, Richard C. Tallman, and

John B. Owens, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Tallman

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2 UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

Affirming a conviction, the panel held that the district

court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the opinion

testimonyof the defendant’s probation officer, identifying the

defendant’s voice speaking primarily Spanish on wiretapped

calls, notwithstanding that the probation officer was not

fluent in Spanish and had only heard the defendant speak

English.

The panel held that the probation officer’s familiarity

with the defendant’s voice was substantially more than the

minimal familiarity required by Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(5) for

admission of lay voice identification testimony. The panel

explained that the defendant’s challenges ultimately go to the

weight rather than the admissibility of the testimony.

COUNSEL

Peter A. Camiel (argued), Mair & Camiel P.S., Seattle,

Washington, for Defendant-Appellant.

Michael S. Morgan (argued), Assistant United States

Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney; Jenny A.

Durkan, United States Attorney, Seattle, Washington, for

Plaintiff-Appellee.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ 3

OPINION

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge:

Richard Anthony Ortiz appeals his conviction for

conspiracy to distribute large quantities of methamphetamine

and heroin, and possession of heroin with intent to distribute

in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A), and 846. 

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.1 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.

I

A

Richard Anthony Ortiz was indicted on April 24, 2012,

along with 33 other co-defendants as part of an inter-agency

investigation into the Berrelleza Drug Trafficking

Organization (“DTO”), which moved large quantities of

drugs from Mexico to the United States and smuggled cash

proceeds and firearms back to Mexico. According to drug

ledgers seized, Ortiz was a leading drug re-distributor for the

DTO. He was released from a halfway house in the summer

of 2011 on another federal charge and began dealing

1 Ortiz’s challenge to the admissibility of prison calls and Title III

wiretap calls are disposed of in a Memorandum Disposition filed

contemporaneously with this opinion. 

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4 UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ

narcotics for the DTO while on supervised release in the

Western District of Washington.

B

Ortiz’s trial was joined with that of co-defendant Raul

Anchondo. On day three of the trial, outside the presence of

the jury, the district court considered arguments from the

prosecutor and Ortiz regarding whether Ortiz’s federal

probation officer, Angela McGlynn, could offer opinion

testimony identifying Ortiz’s voice on intercepted calls. In

these calls, Ortiz spoke to co-conspirator Victor BerrellezaVerduzco primarily in Spanish with some English words,

such as “all right,” “‘cuz you know,” and “because.” As part

of the court’s authentication inquiry to determine the

sufficiency of the foundation, the prosecutor examined

McGlynn outside the presence of the jury to establish the

basis on which she could offer an admissible lay opinion that

she recognized the voice as that of Ortiz, whom she actively

supervised from October 2011 until his March 2012 arrest. 

McGlynn testified that she had previously spoken to Ortiz

over the telephone six to ten times and in person ten to fifteen

times for a period of six months, that Ortiz had a distinctive

voice and a tendency to say “all right” often during his

conversations, that she spoke only “[a] little” Spanish, and

that she had only spoken to Ortiz in English.2

Over defense objection, the district court ultimately

allowed McGlynn’s testimony before the jury, concluding

2 At one point, when McGlynn was asked “Do you speak Spanish at

all?” she replied “At all? A little.” At another point, when asked “Do you

speak any [Spanish]?” she replied “I do.” But when asked if she was

“able to really understand the Spanish in the calls?” she responded “No.”

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UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ 5

that Ortiz’s “concerns [went] to the weight and not the

admissibility of the evidence.”

The jury convicted Ortiz of Conspiracy to Distribute

Methamphetamine and Heroin (Count 1), and Possession of

Heroin with Intent to Distribute (Count 26). On December

13, 2013, the district court sentenced Ortiz to 15 years in

prison to be followed by five years of supervised release. 

This appeal followed.

II

Where objection to an evidentiary ruling has been

properly preserved, we review a district court’s admission of

lay opinion testimony for abuse of discretion. See United

States v. Beck, 418 F.3d 1008, 1013–15 & n.3 (9th Cir. 2005). 

Given that the district court applied the correct legal standard,

we uphold these rulings unless they are “illogical,

implausible, or without support in inferences that may be

drawn from the facts in the record.” United States v.

Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247, 1263 (9th Cir. 2009) (en banc).

Ortiz challenges the admission of McGlynn’s lay opinion

testimony because she did not speak Spanish and had only

heard Ortiz speak English.3 We reject Ortiz’s contention that

3 For the first time on appeal, Ortiz also argues the identification

procedure was impermissibly suggestive under Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S.

188, 199 (1972), violating Ortiz’s right to due process because the

prosecutor specifically asked McGlynn whether she could identify Ortiz’s

voice prior to listening to the calls. The defense contends this was unduly

suggestive since the prosecutor inferred that Ortiz’s voice was known to

have been captured on the calls before McGlynn had been asked to listen

to them. However, we do not reach this argument as Ortiz waived it by

failing to raise it before the district court and failing to show good cause

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6 UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ

admitting McGlynn’s testimony constitutes reversible error

as a matter of law.

Under Federal Rule of Evidence 901(a), “[w]here the

government offers a tape recording of the defendant’s voice,

it must also make a prima facie case that the voice on the tape

is in fact the defendant’s . . . .” United States v. Gadson, 763

F.3d 1189, 1204 (9th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). “Lay

opinion . . . is permissible so long as the witness testifying

has [the] requisite familiarity with the speaker.” United

States v. Thomas, 586 F.2d 123, 133 (9th Cir. 1978). The

opinion must be “based on hearing the voice at any time

under circumstances that connect it with the alleged speaker.” 

Fed. R. Evid. 901(b)(5). “Rule 901(b)(5) establishes a low

threshold for voice identifications”—an identifying witness

need only be “minimally familiar with the voice he

identifies.” United States v. Plunk, 153 F.3d 1011, 1023 (9th

Cir. 1998) (internal quotation marks omitted), overruled on

other grounds recognized by United States v. Hankey, 203

F.3d 1160, 1169 n.7 (9th Cir. 2000). Once the offering party

meets this burden, “the probative value of the evidence is a

matter for the jury.” United States v. Workinger, 90 F.3d

1409, 1415 (9th Cir. 1996). The district court does not abuse

its discretion when it admits evidence that meets the

minimum requirements for authentication under the Federal

Rules of Evidence and allows the defense to argue that the

jury should give the evidence minimal weight. Id. at 1416.

for its omission during trial in his Opening Brief. Fed. R. Crim. P.

12(b)(3)(C), (c)(3); United States v. Wright, 215 F.3d 1020, 1026 (9thCir.

2000); United States v. Montoya, 45 F.3d 1286, 1300 (9th Cir. 1995)

(issues not raised and argued in the opening brief are deemed waived),

cert. denied, 516 U.S. 814 (1995).

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UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ 7

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 recognizes

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 Rule

901(b)(5). Despite the lack of precedent, the district court

conducted a thorough analysis of the issue. Outside the

presence of the jury, the district court asked Ortiz and the

government to provide it with any cases related to the

admission of McGlynn’s opinion testimony so that it might

consider the precedent during the recess. The government

referred the district court to a Tenth Circuit case in support of

the proposition that a witness need not understand the

language spoken to identify a voice. United States v. ZepedaLopez, 478 F.3d 1213 (10th Cir. 2007). Without the jury

present, the trial judge heard Officer McGlynn testify as to

the basis for recognizing Ortiz’s voice. The district court

held that McGlynn could testify given the low threshold for

lay opinion authentication testimony and concluded that

Ortiz’s objection went to the weight of the evidence, not its

admissibility.

In Zepeda-Lopez, the agent identifying the defendant’s

voice did not speak Spanish but had listened to six recordings

including one in which the defendant had self-identified by

his nickname. The defendant also admitted his voice was on

three of the taped calls. Id. at 1216, 1219. Additionally, the

agent listened to the defendant’s testimony in court before

offering an opinion to the jury. Id. Unlike in this case, the

district court in Zepeda-Lopez conducted the admissibility

determination in the presence of the jury and reasoned that

the self-identification on the Spanish call created a baseline

to which the agent could compare subsequent recordings. Id.

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8 UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ

at 1219. The jury in Zepeda-Lopez listened to the Spanish

calls and, in light of defendant’s objection to the agent’s

opinion testimony, the district court provided a limiting

instruction:

Special agent Barrett will tell you whom he

believes the various speakers are. But you’re

going to be listening to the tapes and see if

one voice is the same on the other [sic]. It’s

entirely up to you to decide whether you agree

with him or not, okay? That’s your decision.

Id. at 1216.

In Ortiz’s case, he did not self-identify in any of the

Spanish calls and the jury did not listen to the Spanish

recordings. Without objection from Ortiz, the English

transcripts prepared by the government were read aloud to the

jury.

McGlynn testified that although she spoke some Spanish,

she was not fluent in Spanish. She further testified that she

had spoken to Ortiz—in English—in person and over the

phone during the six months she had supervised him as his

probation officer. McGlynn had met with Ortiz in person

roughly ten to fifteen times over the course of six

months—with some conversations lasting an hour—in

addition to many more conversations over the phone. She

characterized Ortiz’s voice as “pretty distinctive” and “kind

of scratchy,” and she testified that he “has some inflections”

in his voice. It is also relevant as to weight that some of the

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UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ 9

recorded phone conversations included words spoken in

English. McGlynn noted that Ortiz “uses the word[s] ‘all

right’ frequently.” In one of the recorded phone calls, that

phrase was used in English three times, and it also appears in

several other calls. The calls contained other English words

and phrases like “microwave,” “yeah,” and “‘cuz you know.” 

In addition to the recorded Spanish calls, McGlynn listened

to recorded calls in English that Ortiz made from prison in

which he self-identified by name, much like the selfidentifying exemplar that the court in Zepeda-Lopezrelied on. 

478 F.3d at 1219. McGlynn testified that she was “pretty

certain” it was Ortiz’s voice on the recorded phone calls in

Spanish.

Here, McGlynn’s familiarity with Ortiz’s voice was

substantially more than the minimal familiarity Rule

901(b)(5) requires for admission of lay voice identification

testimony. See, e.g., Plunk, 153 F.3d at 1023.

Ultimately Ortiz’s challenges go to the weight rather than

the admissibility of McGlynn’s testimony. Indeed, the district

court provided the juryan appropriate limiting instruction and

emphasized the prosecution’s burden of proving its case

beyond a reasonable doubt:

It is ultimately up to you to determine whether

that is Richard Anthony Ortiz on [the Spanish

calls]. You shouldn’t assume that by the fact

that it is [on the written transcript]. That is

obviously how the transcript has been

prepared by the government, and I have put it

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10 UNITED STATES V. ORTIZ

in front of you, but you will decide whether

the government has proven it is indeed that

person beyond a reasonable doubt.

The district court did not err in how it handled this

evidentiary issue at trial. 

AFFIRMED.

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