Opinion ID: 866145
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Voice Identification Testimony

Text: Díaz-Arias' main argument in this appeal is that the district court abused its discretion when it allowed the government to introduce the lay opinion testimony of Trooper Cepero, who identified Díaz-Arias as the speaker in the intercepted telephone conversations. He contends that this testimony ran afoul of Federal Rule of Evidence 701 for lay opinion testimony because it: (1) was not helpful to the jury; (2) was not based on personal knowledge; (3) constituted expert testimony masked as lay opinion; -11- and (4) was factually flawed. The following background on Trooper Cepero's testimony at trial will assist us in sorting through these arguments.
Trooper Cepero is a trooper with the Massachusetts State Police, where he has served for approximately 30 years, primarily in narcotics enforcement. At trial, he testified that he has fulfilled many roles there, including working undercover, serving search warrants, doing surveillance and serving as affiant on wiretaps. He stated that he has participated in hundreds of investigations, including over 30 that involved wiretaps. He was born in Puerto Rico, and Spanish is his native language; he continues to speak Spanish fluently and uses it in connection with his duties as a state trooper. For example, he has used his Spanish skills in several wiretap investigations involving Spanish speakers. He testified that he is familiar with individuals from the Dominican Republic (where Díaz-Arias is from) and their speaking intonations and accents. Trooper Cepero testified that he was a co-case agent on the DEA investigation that led to Pinales' and Díaz-Arias' arrests. During most of the investigation, Cepero was stationed in a wire room, overseeing and reviewing the audio of the intercepted telephone calls from the day before, as well as the transcripts and summaries of those calls. Whenever a phone call was made to or -12- from an intercepted phone line, the call would be recorded via computer onto an optical disk that would contain the audio of the call, the data furnished by the phone company, and any additional comments provided by the officer monitoring the call. In preparation for trial, Trooper Cepero copied the recorded calls that involved Hipólito onto a separate optical disk and reviewed the transcripts and translations of those recorded conversations. The parties do not seem to dispute that the transcripts accurately reflected the words spoken among the speakers, which were translated from Spanish into English. During trial, the government introduced into evidence Exhibits 26 and 27, which featured the recorded telephone calls that involved Hipólito and the transcripts of those calls. Trooper Cepero testified that he had reviewed all of those calls with their companion transcripts, and assured that the transcripts accurately identified the speakers and the words spoken. He testified that he spent approximately five or six hours listening to the calls in preparation for trial. In order to adequately compare the voice of Hipólito in Exhibits 26 and 27 with the voice of Díaz-Arias, the prosecution introduced Exhibit 41, a compact disk that contained at least 16 recorded telephone calls, which the parties stipulated were recent recordings of the defendant Hipólito Díaz-Arias' voice obtained by lawful means. Some of the recordings included conversations -13- between Díaz-Arias and Fresa. Trooper Cepero testified that he spent about three hours listening to the calls in Exhibit 41 in their entirety and went over some of them a couple of times. In preparation for trial, he compared the voice of Díaz-Arias on Exhibit 41 with the voice of Hipólito on Exhibit 27. In making that comparison, Trooper Cepero testified that he took into account several factors, including: (1) things that were unique to the voice, such as greetings, laughter, tone, manner and speech pattern; (2) certain expressions that could not have been rehearsed; (3) certain expressions that were indicative of something the speaker did all the time; and (4) if the speaker used, or responded to, his name, and whether the speaker referenced to having spoken with someone else beforehand. Based on these factors, Cepero testified that, in his opinion, the voices belonged to the same gentleman, same voice. Díaz-Arias lodged an objection to this testimony, but it was overruled by the district court. He now renews his objection to the admission of the lay opinion testimony before us, which we review for manifest abuse of discretion. United States v. Valdivia, 680 F.3d 33, 50 (1st Cir. 2012).
Díaz-Arias claims that the proffered testimony by Trooper Cepero was not helpful to the jury because the jurors were just as capable as Trooper Cepero of comparing the voice of Hipólito with -14- that of Díaz-Arias. We disagree. In order for lay opinion testimony to be admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 701, the testimony must be helpful to clearly understanding the witness' testimony or to determining a fact in issue. Fed. R. Evid. 701(b); United States v. Flores-de Jesús, 569 F.3d 8, 20 (1st Cir. 2009). Lay opinion testimony will not be helpful to the jury when the jury can readily draw the necessary inferences and conclusions without the aid of the opinion. United States v. Sanabria, 645 F.3d 505, 515 (1st Cir. 2011) (quoting Lynch v. City of Boston, 180 F.3d 1, 17 (1st Cir. 1999))(emphasis added). The nub of this helpfulness requirement is to exclude testimony where the witness is no better suited than the jury to make the judgment at issue, providing assurance against the admission of opinions which would merely tell the jury what result to reach. United States v. Meises, 645 F.3d 5, 16 (1st Cir. 2011) (internal quotations and citations omitted); see also United States v. Vázquez-Rivera, 665 F.3d 351, 361 (1st Cir. 2011) ([T]estimony, the 'sole function' of which is 'to answer the same question that the trier of fact is to consider in its deliberations . . . [m]ay be excluded as unhelpful.') (quoting 4 J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Weinstein's Federal Evidence § 701.05 (Joseph M. McLaughlin, ed., Matthew Bender 2d ed. 2011)). We are mindful that lay opinions which make an assertion as to the ultimate issue in a case will -15- rarely meet the requirement of Rule 701(b), since the jury's opinion is as good as the witness's. United States v. RodríguezAdorno, 695 F.3d 32, 39 (1st Cir. 2012) (internal quotations and citation omitted). Díaz-Arias contends that Trooper Cepero's opinion was just as good as the jury's because Trooper Cepero had never spoken with Díaz-Arias in person. Furthermore, the testimony in question went directly to the ultimate issue: it asserted that Díaz-Arias was the speaker in the recordings, thus identifying him as the guilty party and leaving no room for the jury to draw its own conclusions as to what the evidence established. The government, for its part, argues that Trooper Cepero's testimony was helpful to the jury because, as a native Spanish speaker who is familiar with the intonations and accents of people from the Dominican Republic, Trooper Cepero possessed particularized knowledge which may have proven helpful to a reasonable juror in making a voice comparison of a native Spanish speaker. The government calls our attention to United States v. Ayala, No. 09-CR-0138, 2010 WL 3369686, at  (N.D. Okla. Aug. 24, 2010), where the district court for the Northern District of Oklahoma allowed the lay opinion testimony of an interpreter who made a voice identification of a Spanish speaking defendant. We agree with the government that, in this particular case, Trooper Cepero's testimony should have proven useful to the -16- jury in identifying Díaz-Arias' voice. Given the fact that the wiretapped conversations were in Spanish, the district court did not abuse its discretion by determining that the jury may not have been able to readily draw the inferences and conclusions necessary to identify Díaz-Arias' voice, in the absence of Trooper Cepero's testimony. Díaz-Arias can point to no evidence that this particular jury, sitting in Massachusetts, possessed the same mastery of the Spanish language as did Trooper Cepero, who is a native speaker familiar with the particular accents, intonations and speaking habits of persons from the Dominican Republic.6 Lacking this background, the jurors were in a less advantageous position than Trooper Cepero was in making the voice comparison, as they would have had trouble understanding the words being spoken amongst the speakers and telling their voices apart. This, in turn, would have hampered their efforts to detect how specific words were being repeated and vocalized by the speakers, to the detriment of their efforts to make a voice comparison. The jurors also benefited from Trooper Cepero's guidance in making their voice identification because Trooper Cepero testified as to the particularities they should look for, including the speaker's unique intonation of certain words, greetings and 6 It is irrelevant that Trooper Cepero had never spoken with DíazArias prior to trial, as the helpfulness of his testimony centers upon his fluency in the Spanish language, and not on any contact he may have had with Díaz-Arias beforehand. -17- laughter. Trooper Cepero was able to derive these indicators thanks to the significant amount of hours he was able to devote, before trial, to listening to and comparing the voices of Hipólito and Díaz-Arias. In this regard, Trooper Cepero's testimony may have actually saved time for the jury. We conclude that Trooper Cepero and the jurors were not in the same position when it came to comparing the voices in the recordings, and therefore, the jury could have found the trooper's testimony to be helpful.
Federal Rule of Evidence 701 also requires that lay opinion testimony be rationally based on the witness's perception. Fed. R. Evid. 701(a). Díaz-Arias argues that Trooper Cepero's testimony failed to comport with this requisite, because Trooper Cepero allegedly based his identification of Díaz-Arias' voice on information that was relayed to him from the other agents working on the case. Specifically, Díaz-Arias claims that Trooper Cepero testified that he coordinated with the other agents in the case and read their reports. Because Trooper Cepero never spoke to Díaz-Arias in person, the argument goes, Trooper Cepero's lay opinion was not based on personal knowledge, but rather resulted from the overall investigation. We have repeatedly warned that prosecutors should not permit investigators to give overview testimony, in which a -18- government witness testifies about the results of a criminal investigation, usually including aspects of the investigation the witness did not participate in . . . . United States v. RosadoPérez, 605 F.3d 48, 55 (1st Cir. 2010). Such testimony improperly exposes the jury to conclusory statements that are not based on the witness' personal knowledge, and which are unreliable because they often consist of inadmissible hearsay evidence derived from other government agents who participated in the investigation, but who were never brought to testify at trial. See Flores-De Jesús, 569 F.3d at 19 (stating that, when a government witness expresses his opinion as to a defendant's culpability based on the overall results of an investigation, these conclusory statements often involve impermissible lay opinion testimony, without any basis in personal knowledge, about the role of the defendant in the conspiracy.). We are satisfied that Trooper Cepero's voice identification testimony was squarely based on his personal knowledge. Díaz-Arias claims that, during cross-examination, Trooper Cepero admitted that he worked with the other agents participating in the investigation and read their reports. However, Trooper Cepero never said that his identification of DíazArias' voice was based on the contents of those reports or on his interactions with the other agents, and Díaz-Arias' counsel did not follow up on this line of questioning by asking Trooper Cepero -19- whether he had in fact based his opinion on outside evidence. Rather, a review of the testimony reveals that Trooper Cepero adequately based his testimony on the knowledge he developed from personally listening to, and analyzing, the recorded telephone conversations of Hipólito, as well as the stipulated audio recordings containing exemplars of Díaz-Arias' voice.7 If a proper foundation is laid establishing the basis of a government lay witness' knowledge, opinion or expertise, then such a witness may testify about matters within his personal knowledge and give lay or, if qualified, expert opinion testimony. Rosado-Pérez, 605 F.3d at 56. This was clearly done in this case, as the prosecutor properly authenticated Trooper Cepero's voice identification testimony, by having him testify at length about (1) the procedures that were used to intercept and record the relevant phone conversations; (2) his experience handling wiretap investigations; (3) his fluency in the Spanish language as a native speaker from Puerto Rico who is familiar with the accents and intonations of 7 Díaz-Arias' reliance on our decision in Vázquez-Rivera, 365 F.3d at 361, is misplaced, because in that case, the government had asked the government witness who the investigation had identified as the culpable party, and the witness answered that it was the defendant. We held that such testimony was improper under Rule 701 because the agent had never personally heard or observed the defendant; instead, the agent based her testimony on the combined perceptions of others. This is not the case here, as Trooper Cepero testified that he was familiar with Díaz-Arias' voice due to the hours he spent listening to the admitted recordings, and based his voice identification testimony on his own perceptions of those recordings. -20- individuals from the Dominican Republic; (4) his familiarity with the voices present in the recordings, given the extent of his preparation before trial in listening to them; and (5) the particularities he looked for in comparing the voices present in the recordings. Therefore, we conclude that the voice identification testimony was properly authenticated pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 901, and that the content of this testimony was squarely based on Trooper Cepero's personal knowledge.
Díaz-Arias' fourth challenge is that the district court erred in allowing Trooper Cepero's voice identification testimony as it did not comply with the requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702, which governs the admission of expert witness testimony. Specifically, he complains that the government attempted to portray Trooper Cepero as an expert in voice identification, by having him testify about his fluency in the Spanish language and his familiarity with the accents of Spanish speakers from the Dominican Republic. However, apart from this impression, Díaz-Arias makes no attempt to explain how the trooper's familiarity with the Spanish language constituted the type of specialized knowledge and heightened sophistication normally associated with expert testimony. United States v. Espinal-Almeida, 699 F.3d 588, 614 (1st Cir. 2012) (ellipsis -21- omitted). Neither does he elaborate on how the methods used by Trooper Cepero in making the voice comparison were unreliable or how he was prejudiced by the district court's decision to allow the testimony as lay, instead of expert, opinion. See United States v. Hilario-Hilario, 529 F.3d 65, 72 (1st Cir. 2008)(to succeed in obtaining a reversal on appeal, a defendant must prove both an abuse of discretion and prejudice.) (citing United States v. Álvarez, 987 F.2d 77, 85 (1st Cir. 1993), cert denied, 510 U.S. 849 (1993)). In addition, these arguments are irrelevant to the issues presented by Trooper Cepero's testimony identifying Díaz-Arias as the speaker in question. During cross-examination, Trooper Cepero clearly admitted that he was not an expert in voice identification, and stated that the jury had as much expertise as he did in voice recognition. Further, at the close of evidence, the district court reminded the jurors that they were not obligated to accept his testimony, and that they could disregard it if they concluded it was unreliable or inadequately supported. As a result, we cannot conclude that the jurors were misled into thinking that Trooper Cepero was an expert witness and that they needed to accord any undue deference to his testimony. Accordingly, we find no abuse of discretion here. -22-
Díaz-Arias' final challenge to the admission of the voice identification testimony is that the testimony was factually flawed. He makes the case that, in the recordings of the wiretapped conversations, Hipólito represented that he was facing certain events and circumstances in his life which are directly at odds with the events and circumstances surrounding Díaz-Arias' life in 2004. Firstly, he notes that in the recordings, Hipólito identified himself as being age 34 and that he was born in the month of April. Conversely, Díaz-Arias claims he is 41 years of age and that his birthday falls on January 29. Secondly, he notes that in the recordings, Hipólito made reference to the sacrifices he was making for Angie, who presumably was his daughter. DíazArias now claims that the evidence at trial revealed that he only had three children, none of whom were named Angie. Thirdly, on one of the calls, Hipólito mentioned that he had not been able to see a certain woman, because she had put a restraining order on him, and that this, in turn, had prevented him from seeing his oldest daughter, whom he had raised. Díaz-Arias argues that the recording does not identify the woman as Jacqueline Fresa, that the government did not elicit testimony from Fresa going to her efforts to impede Díaz-Arias from seeing his oldest daughter, and that Fresa's oldest daughter was in fact fathered by a man named Jason Pina, which makes it extremely unlikely that Díaz-Arias would have -23- been the one that raised her. Lastly, Díaz-Arias contends that the speaker in the recordings was not clear on whether he had one or more daughters with the woman he spoke about. Having thoroughly reviewed the record, including DíazArias' smorgasbord of aliases and liaisons, we are convinced that a reasonable jury may still have elected to credit Trooper Cepero's testimony, despite these seeming inconsistencies. In fact, many of the inconsistencies cited by Díaz-Arias are not inconsistencies at all. First of all, the Presentence Report (PSR) lists Díaz-Arias as having been born on January 29, 1971. In the summer and fall of 2004, Díaz-Arias would have been 33 years old, turning 34 the following year. In his brief, he states that he is 41 years old, but that probably refers to his age in 2012, when the brief was written. That said, there is a valid question as to the month of his birthday, January vs. April, but the record in this case establishes that Díaz-Arias was an avid user of false identities, which allowed him to assume several false dates of birth. Therefore, a reasonable jury would have acted well within in its discretion in concluding that Díaz-Arias was merely being untruthful when he asserted that he was 34 years old as of April. It was also free to surmise that Díaz-Arias' true date of birth was not conclusively established at trial. Likewise, Díaz-Arias' assertion that he only had three daughters, none of whom were named Angie, is unsupported by the -24- record. First of all, the record indicates that it was Fresa, and not Díaz-Arias, who testified that she only had three daughters, two with Díaz-Arias and one with Jason Pina. Second, having reviewed the pertinent transcripts, it is apparent to us that Hipólito never explicitly stated that he had procreated Angie with the woman who placed the restraining order against him, and whom the government argued was Fresa. Hipólito only appeared to mention that he had raised Angie and that the woman in question had taken her away from him. Third, there was evidence that DíazArias had romantic relationships with other women, and so the jury could have inferred that Angie was another one of Díaz-Arias' daughters, procreated with someone other than Fresa. In fact, the PSR noted that Díaz-Arias reported having four other children, including two with Angie Christo, one of his former girlfriends. In any case, it is difficult to argue that the reference to Angie could have created any reasonable doubt within the minds of the jurors while evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence against Díaz-Arias. We are similarly unpersuaded by Díaz-Arias' remaining arguments, to the effect that the recordings did not identify Fresa as the woman who had placed the restraining order against him. The content of the recorded phone conversations, Fresa's testimony, and the admission of the restraining order itself (which was filed only a few days before Hipólito referred to it in the recordings) as -25- well as the other evidence presented at trial, comprised enough circumstantial evidence for the jury to conclude that it was Fresa who filed the restraining order against Hipólito. Any uncertainty as to the amount of children Hipólito had with Fresa is minimal compared to the corroborating circumstantial evidence presented at trial, which strongly indicated that Hipólito was indeed Díaz-Arias. Moreover, it is the prerogative of the jury to choose between varying interpretations of the evidence. United States v. Sánchez-Badillo, 540 F.3d 24, 32 (1st Cir. 2008)(citing United States v. Wilder, 526 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2008)); see also United States v. Rodríguez-Durán, 507 F.3d 749, 758 (1st Cir. 2007) (The government need not succeed in eliminating every possible theory consistent with the defendant's innocence . . . and circumstantial evidence alone may be sufficient to provide a basis for conviction. (internal quotations and citations omitted)); United States v. Martínez, 922 F.2d 914, 923 (1st Cir. 1991)(The evidence need not exclude every reasonable hypothesis inconsistent with guilt, and the jury is entitled to choose among varying interpretations of the evidence so long as the interpretation it chooses is a reasonable one.). Based on the foregoing, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Trooper Cepero’s voice identification testimony. -26-