Opinion ID: 866145
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Personal Experience

Text: 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.