Opinion ID: 6495477
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Trial Testimony and Objection

Text: Daniel O’Donnell, a custodian of records on the legal investigation support team at Google, stated that his job was to provide user data in response to law enforcement inquiries that Google receives in the form of subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants. The State did not seek to qualify Mr. O’Donnell as an expert witness. Mr. O’Donnell primarily introduced records of internet searches conducted from Mr. Galicia’s two accounts before and after the murders. That testimony established that, during April 2017, prior to the murders, internet searches were conducted from those accounts for firearms matching those used in the shooting. One such search was conducted 44 shortly after the murders in June 2017; in closing, the State suggested that Mr. Galicia was looking to replace a weapon used in the shooting that had been discarded.38 Before and during Mr. O’Donnell’s testimony, there were lengthy bench conferences during which Mr. Galicia’s counsel argued that it was not appropriate for a lay witness to explain the contents of Google search and location history records. In defense counsel’s view, Mr. O’Donnell’s testimony would be based on specialized knowledge, training, and experience. The trial court ruled that Mr. O’Donnell would be allowed to testify and defense counsel could object on a question-by-question basis. During the direct examination of Mr. O’Donnell, Mr. Galicia’s counsel repeatedly objected to questions about the scope of Google’s recordkeeping.39 Defense counsel eventually requested a continuing objection, which was acknowledged by the trial court, as the State presented the data from Mr. Galicia’s two Google accounts in spreadsheet form and asked Mr. O’Donnell to explain how Google compiles search and location history records. As indicated above, only the location history records are at issue before us. The relevant portion of Mr. O’Donnell’s testimony was as follows: Q: Is there any other types of records that Google keeps from its accountholders? A: Yes. Q: Can you tell us what else? 38 The police never located any of the murder weapons. 39 Among other things, Mr. Galicia’s counsel argued that the records were not admissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule because the records were user-generated and the custodian of records did not have a “duty to report.” The court overruled this objection, likening the records to incoming and outgoing call logs about which a custodian of records from a telephone company would be allowed to testify. 45 A: It depends on the products and services that the user is registered with. It could be anything from their, the contents of their e-mails, photos that they’ve uploaded, their location history, if they’ve opted into that service. Q: When you, now, when you say, if they’ve opted into that service when you said location history, can you explain what you meant by that? A: Sure. So depending on what the product and service is, the user does have functionality to enable or disable the tracking of that data. Location history is one of those services. So a user can opt out of tracking their location history, either by device or across their Google account.