Opinion ID: 6322956
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Leon’s identification of Hall’s voice

Text: Prior to denying Hall’s motion to suppress Leon’s testimony, the District Court conducted a hearing during which Leon explained the basis for his identification of Hall’s voice on the recorded calls. Leon testified that he was Hall’s supervising probation officer starting in early 2012 and ending in late 2013. Leon’s supervision of Hall began with a 45minute, in-person orientation meeting in Leon’s office. During the nearly two years that Leon supervised Hall, they met in Leon’s office “approximate[ly] 17 to 18 times.” App’x 441. Leon also visited Hall at his home about five times and spoke with Hall over the phone “very frequent[ly], either setting up an appointment or rescheduling an appointment.” App’x 441– 42. Leon described Hall’s voice as “different” and as having “this deep, rich quality to it.” App’x 442. Leon also characterized Hall’s voice as “very distinct”—one that he could “remember . . . from several meetings with him over time.” App’x 441. overpowered by his professional adversary.” 413 U.S. 300, 317 (1973). 6 Leon then testified that Parisi contacted him in mid2014, in connection with a criminal investigation of Hall, and that Parisi asked him whether he could identify Hall’s voice on recorded phone calls. Subsequently, the two corresponded about the recorded calls on what Leon described as a “sporadic” basis up until Hall’s first trial in 2017. App’x 442 Leon and Parisi’s conversations always concerned possible identification of the voice on recorded calls as Hall’s, and Parisi never provided Leon with recordings that were known not to contain Hall’s voice. For example, in a September 2014 email, sent with the subject line “Earl Hall,” Parisi asked Leon: “Please listen to the [attached] recordings and let me know if you believe the callers are once again Earl Hall.” App’x 195. Parisi’s request followed Leon’s “100% sure” identification of Hall’s voice on other recordings, App’x 183–84, which Leon made after being asked to do so by U.S. Probation Officer (“PO”) Cristina Figueroa. Figueroa, who took over Hall’s probation supervision from Leon, and who explained that she had “been supervising [Hall] for less time,” had not been able to “make the same conclusion” as Leon.4 Id. 4 Hall appeared to suggest that Parisi’s decision to work with Leon instead of with Figueroa was another factor calling into question the reliability of Leon’s identification. In a June 2015 exchange, Leon asked Parisi, who had been waiting for over a month for a response from Leon regarding Hall’s incarceration 7 Although Leon definitively recognized Hall’s voice on some recordings, Leon was not able to confidently identify Hall’s voice in other recordings upon first listening to them. For one recording, Leon asked Parisi to provide an audioenhanced version. After a second listen, Leon expressed that he was “90% sure it’s Earl [Hall]” who was speaking in the recording. App’x 203. Leon later confirmed that his estimation was “still 90% certainty” after being prompted by Parisi to listen again to the recording. App’x 226. In May 2016, after a first listen during another series of recordings, Leon told Parisi that the voice in some “did not sound like Earl Hall” and that, in others, he could not “with certainty say it’s Earl Hall[’s]” voice. App’x 213. Parisi, asking Leon to “clarify. . . so there is absolutely no confusion,” wrote in response with respect to those recordings: Can you please send us a reply advising your opinion, if you have one, with respect to the identity of the purported callers in the below listed recorded conversations . . . . If any of the recordings are of such a poor audio quality that dates for a prior offense, whether Parisi had asked Figueroa in the meantime for that information. Parisi responded: “No, I didn’t ask her. I decided to ask you instead because you seem interested in helping and I thought our phone conversations were good.” App’x 209. Figueroa was not a witness at Hall’s second trial. 8 you feel that you cannot state any opinion, please advise. You should, of course, only express an opinion as to the identity of any of the purported callers if you are “reasonably certain” that person is the caller. App’x 216–17 (emphases in original). In a subsequent email, Parisi added: “Given the potential Brady implications, we really need to clear up any remaining issues as soon as possible.” App’x 222. After Leon had not replied for several weeks, Parisi reminded him of the need for an answer. Leon eventually emailed in response: “Sorry about the delay. I am working from home tomorrow and can listen to the recordings again . . . . I can then follow along with the titles/dates of the [below listed] recordings and tell you what my impressions are accurately.” Id. After again listening to recordings about which he had initially expressed uncertainty as to the identity of the speaker, Leon identified Hall’s voice on some but not all of them. For two, Leon stated: “This is Earl Hall.” App’x 226–27. For another two, Leon reported that the speaker “sounds like Hall but the voice doesn’t sound as deep and as distinct as his previous recordings.” App’x 226. For a third set of two, Leon said: “This sounds like Earl Hall.” App’x 227. But Leon could not identify the voice on one recording: “I cannot confirm this is Earl Hall. Voice sounds disguised.” Id. Leon testified that he chose to make his identifications of Hall’s voice on his own accord and “did not feel pressured” 9 by Parisi to do so. App’x 462. He also testified that he did not feel that he was “led,” “intimidated,” or “persuaded” by Parisi to make the identifications. Leon declared that he made the identifications “to the best of my knowledge” and “to the best of my memory and belief.” App’x 463. In denying Hall’s motion to exclude Leon’s testimony, the District Court concluded that the government established “sufficient indicia of reliability in PO Leon’s voice identifications such that the testimony may be presented at trial.” Hall, 2019 WL 5892776, at . And in reaching its conclusion, the District Court applied the test for due process challenges to voice identification evidence set forth in Virgin Islands v. Sanes, where we extended the Supreme Court’s multi-factor due process standard for the reliability of eyewitness testimony to voice identification testimony. 57 F.3d 338, 340–41 (3d Cir. 1995) (citing Neil v. Biggers, 409 U.S. 188 (1972); Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98 (1977)). Those factors include: the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime; the witness’ degree of attention; the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal; the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the time of the confrontation; and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation. Id. at 340. As the District Court acknowledged, the Biggers factors we applied in Sanes are not a perfect fit for Leon’s identification of Hall’s voice: “Unlike the witness in Sanes, PO Leon was not a victim of a crime and heard [Hall’s] voice during times that would require a degree of attention from PO Leon.” Hall, 2019 WL 5892776, at . Like the witness in 10 Sanes, though, Leon had sufficient opportunity to pay attention to Hall’s voice and was confident in his identification of Hall’s voice. Id. The District Court was not swayed by Hall’s observation that Figueroa was unable to identify Hall’s voice on the recordings. Pointing to Federal Rule of Evidence 901(b)(5), which provides that voice identification can be made via “an opinion . . . based on hearing the voice at any time under circumstances that connect it with the alleged speaker,” the District Court held that “voice identification is opinion testimony” and that Figueroa’s inability to identify Hall’s voice was simply her opinion. The Rules of Evidence did not preclude Leon from expressing a different opinion about the identity of the speaker on the recordings. Id. As to Hall’s argument that Parisi was impermissibly suggestive in how he asked Leon whether he recognized Hall’s voice on the recordings, the District Court noted only that “neither party has provided case law” indicating that a voice identification process must be conducted with “open-ended question[s]” about the identity of the speaker.5 Id. It focused more on the reliability of Leon’s voice identification testimony. And because it viewed Leon’s identification of Hall’s voice as sufficiently reliable, the District Court concluded that “the jury can make the appropriate determination as to credibility, weight, and reliability of PO Leon’s testimony.” Id. 5 The District Court did not otherwise analyze whether the identification process was suggestive. Hall, 2019 WL 5892776, at . 11