Opinion ID: 2343191
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: telephone records (# 12)

Text: The trial court ruled that the Commonwealth could introduce Exhibits 37-A and 37-B (an enlargement of Exhibit 37-A), which were computer printouts from telecommunications provider General Telephone Company (GTE) that showed eleven (11) telephone calls made from a payphone at the Glendale Truck Stop in Glendale, Kentucky to Appellant's friends and family in Oklahoma. Special Agent Robert Chatham of the Security Services Division of GTE, testified that in order to determine call volume and to track income at coin-operated telephones GTE maintains computer records on calls made from pay telephones in its regular course of business from which we can ... specify what information we want and extract it in a more timely manner. Exhibits 37-A and 37-B represented an assist run from our local switch in the Elizabethtown office denoting long distance telephone calls to Oklahoma. Special Agent Chatham testified that he was the official custodian of records for GTE and explained that although the exhibits themselves were generated in response to a subpoena from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, all of the call information on here would have been available in one report or in one form or another within GTE. KRE 803(6) provides: The following are not excluded by the hearsay rules, even though the declarant is available as a witness: .... (6) Records of regularly conducted activity. A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness.... Appellant argues that the exhibits were not admissible as business records because the exhibits themselves were not prepared in the regular course of GTE's business but were instead prepared in response to a subpoena. Accordingly, Appellant maintains that the fact that the exhibits were prepared in anticipation of litigation demonstrates that the method or circumstance of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. However, [t]his argument misconstrues the essence of Rule 803(6): so long as the original computer data compilation was prepared pursuant to a business duty in accordance with regular business practice, the fact that the hard copy offered as evidence was printed for purposes of litigation does not affect its admissibility. United States v. Hernandez, 913 F.2d 1506, 1512-1513 (10th Cir.1990). See also United States v. Fujii, 301 F.3d 535, 539 (7th Cir.2002) (airline check-in and reservation records compiled and presented in computer printouts prepared specifically for trial were admissible under FRE 803(6) because underlying records were compiled and maintained in ordinary course of business). Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it permitted the Commonwealth to introduce exhibits 37-A and 37-B.