Opinion ID: 1234716
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether the jurors should be allowed to hear the 911 tape

Text: The jurors' request raised an issue that we have often found quintessentially strategic: the choice of whether to admit evidence that could either help or harm a defendant's case. See generally Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168, 186, 106 S.Ct. 2464, 91 L.Ed.2d 144 (1986); Boyde v. Brown, 404 F.3d 1159, 1174 (9th Cir.), amended by 421 F.3d 1154 (9th Cir. 2005); Bonin v. Calderon, 59 F.3d 815, 834 (9th Cir.1995). Whether the jurors should have been allowed to hear the 911 tape is no exception. Throughout the trial, Frantz indicated that he thought the requested tape had particular significance to his defense. Despite the damaging statement on the tape that the robber was armed, Frantz believed that the tape could impeach the credibility of the government's most knowledgeable witness, Diana Villalobos. Villalobos, the cashier whom Frantz allegedly approached to rob, was the sole witness who described the entire sequence of the robbery. She was also the only witness to testify that she saw Frantz with a gun; the police officers who responded to the scene did not report seeing Frantz with a gun and never recovered one. Accordingly, during his two-day trial, Frantz three times tried to introduce the tape or its transcript, and Lamb told the judge during one bench conference that Frantz was fixated on the issue. After the judge suggested to Lamb that he would grant Frantz's request to admit the transcript of the 911 call, Frantz withdrew the request; the record before us does not explain why. Still, Frantz's change of position does not diminish the importance of any decision about the call tape or transcript. Admitted or not, the content of the 911 call  on tape or as transcribed  maintained its potential strategic relevance, as the very request from the jury to hear the tape indicated. [18] As a result, we conclude that, to the extent that the chambers conference involved a decision about whether to admit the 911 tape, participation in it was central to Frantz's Faretta right to control his defense. See generally McDermott, 64 F.3d at 1454 (holding that a defendant's Faretta rights were violated by his exclusion from bench conferences addressing issues including admissibility of testimony and other evidence); Oses v. Massachusetts, 961 F.2d 985, 986 (1st Cir.1992) (per curiam) (holding that a defendant's Faretta rights were violated by his exclusion from bench conferences covering important issues including the admission of evidence).