Opinion ID: 1985763
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: NEWMAN, Senior Judge, dissenting:

Text: Judge Walton assigns three reasons for his conclusion that the voice demonstration which he considered lacked the minimal reliability required for admissibility: (1) .... substantial variance between the quality of the voices recorded by Welch's tape recorder and the proposed live voice exemplar which would have been presented by the defendant in the courtroom; (2) the inability to adequately duplicate the circumstances which existed during the commission of the crime; and (3) the ease with which the defendant could disguise or change his voice when submitting the proposed exemplar, and therefore deliberately mislead a jury, which lacks the expertise to detect such deception. These findings are either basically truisms, erroneous or without adequate evidentiary support. As his first reason, Judge Walton says we can't replicate the scene and dynamics at which the crime scene tape was made. While this statement is true, it is basically a truism. It is always inherently difficult and indeed quite often impossible to replicate in the present, past real life occurrences. Such precision, while perhaps common in scientific laboratories, is virtually unheard of in the events which become the meat of the law of evidence. The proper test is (1) are there sufficient similarities to make the comparison probative, and (2) are the dissimilarities likely to distort the comparison to the extent that the evidence is not relevant? In this regard, can the dissimilarities be adjusted for and/or explained so that their effect on the comparison can be explained to and/or understood by the jury? American Nat'l Watermattress Corp. v. Manville, 642 P.2d 1330, 1337-38 (Alaska 1982); see also Norfolk & W. Ry. v. Henderson, 132 Va. 297, 111 S.E. 277 (1922); Blevins v. Cushman Motors, 551 S.W.2d 602, 610 (Mo.1977) (the degree of similarity or difference should be judged in the light of the fundamental principal that any fact should be admissible which logically tends to aid the trier in determination of the issue) (citations omitted). I have no quarrel with the majority adopting the test concerning the admissibility of experimental evidence as articulated in Love v. State, 457 P.2d 622, 628 (Alaska 1969). This is particularly so since it was only after my circulating to the majority the original version of this dissent, citing the cases above cited, that the majority deigned to address the issue of the proper legal test to determine the admissibility of experimental demonstrative evidence. It does so now by citing Love, which is cited and relied on in American Nat'l Watermattress Corp. v. Manville, supra , my lead citation on this issue. Compare Washington Gas Light Co. v. Public Serv. Comm'n, 450 A.2d 1187, 1242 (D.C.1982) (per curiam) (Harris, J., concurring and dissenting) (While I concur in the results reached on many of the issues in this appealand in fact authored, but for a number of selective changes, most of the portions of the per curiam opinion with which I do not disagree ...). Having originally ignored the need to articulate the legal test and only when challenged deigning to do so, the majority proceeds to contend that, unlike the majority originally, Judge Walton was in fact aware of the proper test and properly applied it. A fair reading of the entirety of the record belies this contention. Cases are legion where voice exemplars have been ordered by courts to compare with the questioned voice although the questioned voice scenes and circumstances could not be replicated. For example, in one of the first cases in which it dealt with voice identifications, the Supreme Court gave its imprimatur to an order sought by the government compelling suspects in a lineup to speak the words allegedly spoken by the bank robber so that witnesses could attempt a voice identification. United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218, 87 S.Ct. 1926, 18 L.Ed.2d 1149 (1967). Later, the Court gave similar sanction to a trial court granting the government's request for an order compelling suspects to give voice exemplars consisting of the suspect's reading the transcripts of taped telephone conversations so that a voice comparison could be made. United States v. Dionisio, 410 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 764, 35 L.Ed.2d 67 (1973). And in United States v. Williams, 704 F.2d 315 (6th Cir.1983), the Sixth Circuit sustained the trial court's order (on government motion) compelling the defendant to read a neutral passage from a news magazine in the presence of a jury for comparative purposes. See United States v. Mitchell, 556 F.2d 371 (6th Cir.1977) (formal voice exemplars ordered of defendants by court on government motion so that jury could compare with tape recordings); United States v. Woods, 544 F.2d 242 (6th Cir.1976) (formal voice exemplars of defendants on government motion to compare with wiretap tape as well as informal aural showups admitted); see also United States v. Brown, 644 F.2d 101 (2d Cir.1981) (on government motion, court ordered defendant to state in the presence of the jury words allegedly uttered by the bank robber so that witnesses could make in court identification). During the remand hearing, Dr. Shuy opined that lay jurors have the natural capacity to do voice comparison since human beings do the same thing from infancy. He further testified that the greater the similarity between the circumstances of the exemplar and the questioned exhibit, the more likely a proper comparison. As he put it, the best comparison is apples and apples; the next best is apples and near apples. While conceding that lay jurors would not be very good at determining whether the speaker on the exemplar was disguising his voice, and that it would be virtually impossible to exactly replicate the circumstances surrounding the making of evidentiary tape, he believed an adequate exemplar could be created to permit jury comparison. Based on the foregoing testimony and decisional law, I would hold that the first basis of Judge Walton's decision is plainly wrong or without evidentiary support, D.C.Code § 17-305(a) (1989), as well as otherwise constituting an abuse of discretion. See Johnson v. United States, 398 A.2d 354 (D.C. 1979). Judge Walton's second basis is little more (if any at all) than a restatement of his first basis. The second basis is fatally flawed, as is the first. What Judge Walton seems to require to adequately duplicate the circumstances is much more than the law requires to establish minimal reliability and relevance of this type evidence. See American Nat'l Watermattress Corp. v. Manville, supra, 642 P.2d at 1337-39 (video tape of experiment was properly admitted where there was substantial similarity of conditions and where expert testimony satisfactorily explained the effect of the various dissimilarities) [1] (as well as other cases cited there also). The third reason given by Judge Walton is the ability of the defendant to disguise or change his voice and the inability of the jury to detect his feigning. With all due respect, I submit this proves too much. Such a factor exists in every case of voice exemplars where the exemplars are created after a criminal defendant is accused. Common experience indicates that there will seldom be audio recordings of a defendant's known voice made prior to him becoming a suspect. Thus, in the vast majority of cases, where introduction of a voice exemplar is sought either by the government or by the defense, the defendant will have a motive to feign. However, a defendant's ability to disguise or change his voice at will is often very limited, as illustrated by the defendant in this case. According to Dr. Shuy, the voice on the evidentiary tape, which the government identified as Taylor's voice, was quite distinctive in its qualities and would be quite difficult to feign or disguise. As he says: In any case, voice quality and pronunciation are the clues most often called on for lay voice identification. There should be no problem in eliciting the speaker's true voice quality and pronunciation, since these are the most difficult language features to successfully disguise. People can spruce up their vocabulary and, to an extent, their grammar much more easily. But people are much less aware of their own pronunciation or voice quality, which is why they are often shocked to hear themselves on tape. The tape recorded passages of Taylor's voice in this conversation provides a quite suitable exemplar for a livevoice comparison. Finally, with respect to the fear of feigning, another option is available. The jury need not be unaided in its comparison of the two voices. Both sides could call expert witnesses to assist the jury in its comparison. This is a common procedure in making evaluations of this kind. See, e.g., Nat'l Watermattress Corp. v. Manville, supra, 642 P.2d at 1338; Blevins v. Cushman Motors, supra, 551 S.W.2d at 609-10.