Opinion ID: 2118216
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Admissibility of Telephone Conversation Testimony

Text: The defendant contends that the trial court denied him fundamental due process and his right of confrontation by permitting certain State witnesses to repeat telephone conversations held with an unidentified caller who had information about the victim. Claiming this testimony lacked the requisite foundation, the defendant argues that the witnesses should be required to identify the caller before relating the substance of the conversation. Acknowledging that he did not object at trial, the defendant asserts that the admission of the testimony constitutes fundamental error. Two police officers testified about telephone calls they received on April 4, 1984 from a person claiming to have information about the victim. According to the first officer, the caller reported seeing the victim walking down the street with a black man who had two shiny objects in his hands. The officer did not know who the caller was. The second officer listened to the latter part of the first telephone call and later took calls from a man who identified himself as Greagree Davis. This officer recognized the caller as the person who made the first call. In a subsequent personal interview at which the second officer was present, the defendant repeated his story about seeing the victim with a black man on the night of the killing, and then he abruptly confessed to the criminal episode. The officer recognized the defendant's voice as being the same voice that made the two prior telephone calls. The defendant is correct that a caller's identity must be established as a foundation for the admission of the content of a telephone call. Starks v. State (1987), Ind., 517 N.E.2d 46. Any doubt regarding the credibility of a voice identification generally goes to the weight of the evidence and not its admissibility. Ashley v. State (1986), Ind., 493 N.E.2d 768. Because the second officer provided the identification testimony, an adequate foundation was provided. We find no error in admitting this telephone conversation testimony. A manager at the victim's place of employment related a telephone conversation he had with an unknown caller who had found some of the victim's personal items upon the ground in the area where the victim's body was later found. The manager opined that the caller was an adolescent black male. The defendant was a black male then in his early twenties. Upon a proper objection, the manager's testimony regarding the phone call would have been inadmissible. However, its admission here was not a blatant violation of basic principles rendering the trial unfair. The manager's testimony regarding the comments of the unknown caller did not provide any facts not otherwise clearly shown by other evidence, including the defendant's confession to police. Admission of this testimony does not amount to fundamental error.