Opinion ID: 3150208
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motions for Experts

Text: On July 9, 2012, Chapman filed a motion requesting the court to appoint an expert to examine the audio-video recording from the November 2, 2010, crack cocaine transaction. Chapman claimed that certain acts that he recalled doing and certain exonerating statements he remembered making were not included in the recording. The district court granted the motion and appointed Adam Dew (“Dew”) as Chapman’s expert to investigate the recording. 8 Nos. 14-3311 and 14-3363 Dew owns and operates a video production company, and has over ten years of experience working with “digital video in all [its] forms.” Dew received a DVD containing the Hawk recording device’s audio-visual recording of the November 2, 2010, crack cocaine transaction. He examined the DVD and issued a report. In the “Summary of findings” section of his report, Dew stated: I came to the conclusion that the video as delivered to us on DVD does not appear to show any signs of tampering. I did not have access to the original camera recordings, only the time-stamped DVD … . The time-stamp does appear to indicate a continu- ous, uninterrupted recording … . [T]here is a glitch in the video with an audio skip, however [the] time code is continuous on the DVD. While we do lose sight of Chapman for a few moments … [the] time code is continuous on the DVD and there is no noticeable tampering with the recording. On May 29, 2013, Chapman filed a second motion seeking appointment of a forensic expert to examine the November 2, 2010, recording. In the motion, Chapman again insisted that portions of the conversation between Chapman and Baggett had been removed. The district court again approved the motion, and appointed Barry Dickey [“Dickey”] as Chapman’s second expert. Dickey is an expert in “forensic evaluation and/or authentication of acoustical/visual media, including the analysis of elemental acoustics and video images contained therein.” Dickey examined the DVD containing the November 2, 2010, Nos. 14-3311 and 14-3363 9 crack cocaine transaction and issued a report. His report stated that data from the DVD was “extracted into forensic software for examination.” Dickey noted that the data appeared “consistent with surveillance recordings commonly associated with federal law enforcement agencies.” Dickey’s procedures included verifying the frame rate of the visual recording, examining the quality of the imaging, and examining the audio embedded from the Hawk recording device. In addition, “[an] overview of HBI/VBI, color scheme, vector/waveform, embedded data, transitions and other parameters were also performed.” Dickey’s report was as follows: “Data integrity checks verified the files as individually and collectively continuous … . Data creation and download time/date information was also verified … . All creation time and dates are sequentially uniform.” Therefore, Dickey concluded: “[the November 2, 2010, recording] does not contain any anomaly which would question its authenticity as a continuous and reliable record of the events existing therein.” On December 26, 2013, Chapman filed a motion seeking appointment of a “computer expert,” and explained that the prior two experts were insufficient because they were audiovisual experts. The district court conducted hearings regarding this motion on December 27, 2013, and January 8, 2014. At the hearings, the district court pointed out that Chapman did not produce any evidence supporting his theory that the recording had been tampered with, and that Chapman’s prior two experts were unable to find any issue with the recording; therefore, there was no reason to justify the appointment of a third expert. The district court denied the motion. 10 Nos. 14-3311 and 14-3363 On April 21, 2014, Chapman filed another motion seeking a third expert to examine the November 2, 2010, recording. On April 24, 2014, the district court conducted a hearing on that motion. The court stated: “There is simply no basis at all for appointing … another person, to examine the materials … in the prayerful hope that that doctor will disclose a different diagnosis than the prior doctors and will therefore provide one that helps Mr. Chapman’s self-diagnosis.” Chapman’s counsel again said that the purpose of the third expert was to appoint a computer expert, as opposed to an audio-visual expert. The district court noted that: “[Chapman has] to have some plausibility predicate for advancing a claim, and there is nothing even to suggest the plausibility of that predicate [here].” The court suggested that it might have considered the appointment if Chapman had indicated any flaw in the software or system the government used to transfer the recording from the Hawk recording device onto the DVD. Since Chapman had no evidence to substantiate this claim, the district court denied the motion for a third expert. We find no error in the district court’s ruling.