Opinion ID: 2766861
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Verizon Employee’s Testimony

Text: [¶10] During its case in chief, the State sought to introduce cell phone billing records for Jeffrey, David, and David’s roommate under the business records exception to the rule against hearsay, M.R. Evid. 803(6), and to lay the necessary foundation through testimony of a Verizon employee offered as custodian of the records. The State asserted that the employee would not testify as an expert and would not offer an interpretation of the records, but would explain 6 what the columns on the records represented. Jeffrey conceded that the records qualified as business records under Rule 803(6), but objected to their admission and to the witness’s explanation of them on the ground that her explanation was either inadequate or beyond the scope of a custodian’s permissible testimony. He argued that the interpretation of an entry on his April 20, 2011, billing record showing receipt of a call at 10:59 a.m. with an “origination” in Millinocket was a subject of expert testimony. He also argued that admission of the record without expert testimony would prejudice him because it would cause the jury to believe that the record proved that he was in Millinocket at the time of the 10:59 a.m. phone call. [¶11] The court observed that the defense knew that the State would offer the billing records and the Verizon employee’s explanation of them well in advance of trial, and that the defense had the ability to determine the substance of the employee’s testimony and to produce its own expert interpretation of the records. After a voir dire of the Verizon employee, the court admitted the records and the employee’s explanation of them over Jeffrey’s objection, ruling that the employee was not going to testify as an expert and that her testimony would neither violate the court’s discovery order nor prejudice the defense. The court specifically ruled that the witness could testify that Jeffrey’s 10:59 a.m. phone call 7 used the Millinocket tower, but could not testify about how far away someone could be from that tower and still use it. [¶12] The Verizon employee testified that she was qualified to provide the explanation of the cell phone billing records by her training and experience interpreting similar bills for over twenty years. She testified that the record for Jeffrey’s phone on April 20, 2011, showed that his phone received a call from David at 10:59 a.m. using a tower in the vicinity of Millinocket, and that his phone was used to call David at 12:03 p.m. using a tower in the vicinity of Argyle. On cross-examination, the employee testified that for a call listing an “origination” in Orono, the caller was “in the vicinity of Orono . . . close enough to pick up [the] tower in Orono,” but that she had no idea how close was “close enough.” [¶13] The defense then presented the testimony of an electrical engineer, who was offered as an expert in cell phone technology. The engineer described several reasons why the “origination” column on a billing record could not be relied upon as proof of a person’s location at the time that the person made or received a call.