Opinion ID: 204046
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Disclosure of Audio Recording

Text: Santiago-Torres contends that the district court erred in denying his request for a mistrial based on the government's alleged failure to produce the April 12, 2006 audio recording during pretrial discovery. We review the court's denial of a mistrial motion for a manifest abuse of discretion. United States v. Van Anh, 523 F.3d 43, 54 (1st Cir.2008). At trial, after the audio recording of Ortiz-Cruz's April 12 controlled purchase was played for the jury, defense counsel moved for a mistrial, claiming that he had not received the recording during discovery. He stated that during pretrial discovery he had received a recording marked April 12 along with a transcript, but the recording was inaudible. He then requested and received a second copy of the recording and transcript from the government, also marked April 12, but he claimed that this was not the recording played at trial. The government maintained that it had provided defense counsel with copies of the April 12 recording and the transcript on two occasions well in advance of trial, and defense counsel should have notified the government if the recording did not match the transcript. The district court then listened to the recording at issue and denied Santiago-Torres's motion, explaining that whatever the CD wasthat was providedI mean, it was easily determined that itit wasn't the proper CD by just looking at the transcript. We find no abuse of discretion in the court's ruling. The court reasonably concluded that, even if the incorrect recording was mistakenly provided, defense counsel could have easily discovered the error and requested the correct recording from the government. Moreover, Santiago-Torres has not shown that he was prejudiced by the government's alleged failure to produce the correct recording prior to trial. See United States v. Devin, 918 F.2d 280, 290 (1st Cir.1990) ([I]n cases of delayed disclosure, a court's principal concern must be whether learning the information altered the subsequent defense strategy, and whether, given timeous disclosure, a more effective strategy would likely have resulted.). He contends that the government's alleged discovery failure caused him to rely on the wrong trial strategy, because his strategy was to obtain suppression of the April 12 recording because it was inaudible and therefore inadmissible. He further claims that if he had received the correct recording prior to trial, he might have accepted the government's plea offer, since the strategy of having the tape excluded on inaudibility grounds would have been foreclosed. Santiago-Torres's claims of prejudice are not plausible. Defense counsel conceded to the district court that after receiving the first recording, which he claimed was inaudible, he requested and received a second copy of the recording from the government. He did not claim that this second recording was inaudible; instead, he conceded that he listened to the recording and understood that this transcript was not really right, that you could not really readyou could not really hear what is in the transcript. In addition, defense counsel was permitted to listen to the government's audio recordings in court on March 6, 2007, prior to trial. Defense counsel admitted to the district court that he wasn't present for the whole session. Finally, although Santiago-Torres claims that his trial strategy was to file a motion to suppress the audio recording, he did not file any such pretrial motion. Santiago-Torres has failed to credibly demonstrate that the alleged discovery failure caused him to adopt a less effective defense strategy, and we are therefore satisfied that any discovery failure was harmless. Affirmed.