Opinion ID: 173724
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Interpretations of Intercepted Conversations

Text: Verdugo cites 32 instances in which he claims that the district court erred in allowing Naylor to testify concerning his interpretation of words and phrases used by the conspirators during their intercepted conversations. The only time Verdugo actually objected to a proposed interpretation, however, was in response to Naylor's innocuous explanation that he had initially misinterpreted Verdugo's statement about seeing some guys at the rest area to mean that Verdugo had spotted the surveillance team. Verdugo otherwise failed to object to Naylor's interpretations and, when the court called counsel to the bench to express concern as to why counsel was not objecting, counsel informed the court that [he] just wanted the court to know [his] reason was [that he] didn't want to limit [his] cross-examination with respect to these phone calls because [he] d[id] intend to question [Naylor] about certain calls. The government argues that counsel's decision not to object to Naylor's interpretations results in a waiver of Verdugo's right to challenge the interpretations on appeal. We agree. As we have noted, claims that are not preserved in the trial court typically are reviewed for plain error. United States v. Medina, 427 F.3d 88, 91 (1st Cir.2005). An intentional relinquishment of a claim, however, results in a complete waiver of the right to raise the claim on appeal. Id. (finding that defendant waived his right to object to the admission of physical evidence on appeal where his counsel told the judge at a bench conference during trial that he had no objection to [the evidence] coming in); see also United States v. Washington, 434 F.3d 7, 11 (1st Cir.2006) (defense counsel waived the right to object to the admission of telephone calls at trial where he made the deliberate strategic choice to play them to the jury to discredit the prosecution's chief witness). Here, Verdugo's counsel made a tactical choice not to object to Naylor's interpretations in order to lay the groundwork for later cross-examination. Having made this choice, Verdugo cannot now challenge the court's failure to exclude Naylor's interpretations on appeal.