Opinion ID: 2426456
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: request to have the tapes examined

Text: During oral argument, on April 13, 1977, counsel for Judge Bates asked the court to grant him a week to file a supplemental brief and a motion to have the originals of the tapes examined by an expert to determine if they had been tampered with. The motion and request by Bates' counsel was received by this Court approximately 3 weeks later. The Examiner [] thereafter filed a motion on May 10, 1977, suggesting the tapes be sent to Washington, D. C. for examination by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Counsel for Judge Bates opposed such investigation by the F.B.I., and requested that this Court send the tapes to Salt Lake City, Utah, there to be examined by Dr. Tom E. Stockham. Rule 21(d) authorizes this Court, for good cause shown, to permit the introduction of additional evidence. [5] Judge Bates suggests here for the first time that the tapes might have been purposely altered. No basis is shown for this new contention. We overruled both these motions. Upon review of the record we found that the evidence establishing a chain of custody, and that the evidence establishing a predicate for the introduction of the tapes, gave us no reason to suspect that any alteration has occurred. Judge Bates presented no such evidence or argument. Never before during the course of two hearings involving the introduction of these tapes did Judge Bates make this complaint. His counsel had numerous other objections, but not this one. The brief filed by his counsel in this Court before the oral argument makes no such observation or objection. Indeed, it is evident from the record that before the Master's hearing, the Judge's counsel had copies or transcriptions of the tapes. We did not feel that good cause for further delay of a decision in this matter had been presented. Moreover, the tapes are evidence in the criminal case against Judge Bates which is pending on appeal, and in the criminal case against Ed Riklin, who is accused of the same crime.