Opinion ID: 508517
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Sound Recordings.

Text: 21 Defendants also contend that the district court abused its discretion in denying their motion to suppress the audiotape recorded during surveillance of the garage. Defendants cite the fact that the recordings had several inaudible and unintelligible passages. They reason that the jury must have been forced impermissibly to speculate as to the meaning of the conversations recorded. 22 The mere fact that some portions of a tape recording are inaudible does not by itself require exclusion of the tape. Unless the unintelligible portions are so substantial as to render the recording as a whole untrustworthy the recording is admissible, and the decision should be left to the sound discretion of the judge. United States v. Bryant, 480 F.2d 785, 790 (2d Cir.1973) (quoting Monroe v. United States, 234 F.2d 49, 55 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 873, 77 S.Ct. 94, 1 L.Ed.2d 76 (1956)); United States v. Maxwell, 383 F.2d 437, 442 (2d Cir.1967), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 1057, 88 S.Ct. 809, 19 L.Ed.2d 856 (1968). 23 Our decisions in this area reveal a clear preference for the admission of recordings notwithstanding some ambiguity or inaudibility, as long as the recordings are probative. See Bryant, 480 F.2d at 790; see also United States v. Chiarizio, 525 F.2d 289, 293-94 (2d Cir.1975); United States v. Carson, 464 F.2d 424, 436-37 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 949, 93 S.Ct. 268, 34 L.Ed.2d 219 (1972); United States v. Warren, 453 F.2d 738, 743 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 406 U.S. 944, 92 S.Ct. 2040, 32 L.Ed.2d 331 (1972); United States v. Weiser, 428 F.2d 932, 937 (2d Cir.1969), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 949, 91 S.Ct. 1606, 29 L.Ed.2d 119 (1971); Maxwell, 383 F.2d at 442. 24 In determining the admissibility of the tape recording, the district court correctly focused on the probative nature of the tapes, and not merely their audibility. The jury was entitled to draw reasonable inferences from defendants' whispering to each other during the two and one-half hours spent in the garage. Moreover, relying on its own reading of transcripts of the recording, the district court concluded that the transcript, even with the inaudible portions marked in, was sufficiently clear that the jury could come to some conclusion as to what was going on down there, namely a very thorough, at least, examination of rolls of paper. On the basis of this record we are satisfied that the district court did not err in finding the tapes to be sufficiently probative to be admitted. 25