Case Name: Joseph Luvon WORLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1972-05-19
Citations: 263 So. 2d 613
Docket Number: No. 71-527
Parties: Joseph Luvon WORLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
Judges: MAGER, J., concurs specially.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 263
Pages: 613–619

Head Matter:
Joseph Luvon WORLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee.
No. 71-527.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District.
May 19, 1972.
Rehearing Denied July 17, 1972.
Timothy A. Curran of Law Office of Sam E. Murrell & Sons, Orlando, for appellant.
Robert L. Shevin, Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, Nelson E. Bailey, Asst. Atty. Gen., West Palm Beach, and Rom W. Powell, County Sol. of Orange County, Orlando, for appellee.

Opinion:
WALDEN, Judge.
Defendant was convicted of telephoning false bomb threats. The evidence against him included voiceprints. Their admission is assigned as error. We find voiceprints were competent evidence and were properly admitted. We affirm.
The police received two anonymous phone calls that bombs had been placed in the police station and in a utilities building. The second call was traced to a phone booth. Defendant was apprehended nearby.
Defendant's fingerprint was on the phone. He gave conflicting stories concerning his presence in the phone booth.
Defendant was also identified by voice by the officer receiving both calls. Such voice identification by ear is properly admissible in Florida. Cason v. State, Fla.App.1968, 211 So.2d 604; Simon v. State, Fla.App.1968, 209 So.2d 682 and Weinshenker v. State, Fla.App.1969, 223 So.2d 561. The credibility of such evidence is clearly a jury question.
In addition, a tape was made of defendant's voice and it was sent, along with tapes of the bomb threats, for spectrographic analysis, to the voiceprint unit of the Michigan State Police Department. There, spectrograms charting the patterns of speech sounds were made of both tapes. These voiceprints were matched to determine if they were made by the same voice.
At trial Dr. Tosi, Professor of Audiology and Speech Sciences, Michigan State University and his collaborator, Sergeant Nash, of the Michigan State Police Department, both testified at length concerning the reliability of voiceprints. They testified, based on their own extensive experiments with over 34,000 spectrographic comparisons, and on the works of others. They claimed in excess of 98% of the time trained examiners could reliably match voices by comparing voiceprints.
After being accepted as qualified experts by the court the witnesses demonstrated how they were sure the voice-print of the caller and defendant were the same.
Florida courts have long enjoyed considerable discretion in the admittance of novel or experimental evidence, if they feel certain standards of scientific reliability have been attained. See Coppolino v. State, Fla.App.1968, 223 So.2d 68. We feel such standards prevailed here.
The admission of voiceprint evidence is a case of first impression in Florida. In fact, our research indicates only five previous appellate decisions nationally on this point, two refusing to admit voiceprints and three admitting them.
State v. Cary, 1967, 49 N.J. 343, 230 A.2d 384, was the first. There the New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that "as of this date" voiceprints have not attained "such degree of scientific acceptance and reliability as to be acceptable as evidence." Dr. Tosi testified that more experimentation was needed, but he had begun such experiments, which would be completed in two years. See also State v. Cary, 1968, 53 N.J. 256, 250 A.2d 15; State v. Cary, 1969, 99 N.J.Super. 323, 239 A.2d 680 and State v. Cary, 1970, 56 N.J. 16, 264 A.2d 209.
In People v. King, 1968, 266 Cal.App.2d 437, 72 Cal.Rptr. 478, it was also decided that a "sufficient level of scientific certainty" has not been reached to allow voice-prints to be admitted into evidence for identification purposes.
Both of these cases are over three years old. Since then, impressive scientific data has been amassed as to the voiceprint's reliability. We hypothesize that, based on the changes in Dr. Tosi's testimony alone, Cary and King would be decided differently today. For these reasons, we decline to follow these cases.
The first case holding voiceprints admissible was United States v. Wright, 1967, 17 U.S.C.M.A. 183, 37 C.M.R. 447. Voice-prints were held admissible only for corroboration purposes.
The next case is State ex rel. Trimble v. Hedman, Minn.1971, 192 N.W.2d 432. This excellent opinion by Justice Knutson discusses at scholarly length the development and use of voiceprints. Hedman also involved the testimony of Professor Tosi. By this time his experiments were complete and he unequivocally, as he did here, testified as to the scientific accuracy and reliability of voiceprints. Hedman concluded that voiceprints are admissible to corroborate voice identification by ear, if a proper foundation is laid establishing the expertise of one preparing the spectro-grams.
The last case is United States v. Raymond, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, February 2, 1972, 337 F.Supp. 641. The court went into great detail discussing the scientific basis for voice-print comparisons. It also commented upon the various experiments conducted, their failings and successes, in concluding voice-print comparisons were admissible if the expertise of the examiner was established. They decided their expert, who was also one of ours, Nash, had the requisite expertise.
In our case the evidence against defendant was already ample to sustain his conviction, even without the use of voiceprints. Therefore, this decision must be limited by our facts. We hold voiceprints were properly admitted to corroborate defendant's identification by other means. State ex rel. Trimble v. Hedman, supra.
The issues not being before us, we do not decide if voiceprint identification may be employed only for corroboration, or, if voiceprint identification, standing alone, would be sufficient to sustain the identification and conviction of the defendant.
Affirmed.
MAGER, J., concurs specially.
WHITE, JOSEPH S., Associate Judge, dissents.