Court Dispute Over Tape Provides Insights

A forensic audio expert hired by the attorney of a San Jose (Calif.) woman charged with drug and weapons violations believes that a 911 call reporting the crimes was tampered with, and his report provides some insights into how comm centers might better prepare original recordings and make copies that will withstand court scrutiny. A San Jose judge recently denied a defense request to admit evidence of tampering, essentially ruling that the logging tape is authentic. The case involves the arrest of Shari Nolan on drug and weapons possession charges in Nov. 2007, after her boyfriend dialed 911 to report a dispute between the two. During the 911 call to a veteran male San Jose police calltaker, Roy Legge laid out the dispute, and gave the calltaker complete and, what turned out to be, accurate information that Nolan was traveling in a car with guns and drugs. Officers were immediately dispatched to the area, and one spotted Nolan’s car and stopped her. She was arrested and has been fighting the charges in court ever since. After Nolan’s arrest, Legge denied that he gave incriminating statements during the 911 calls, but his contention was contradicted by the tape and CAD records as recorded by the calltaker. So, San Jose defense attorney Steve Defilippis challenged the authenticity of the call recordings, hiring a Maine-based audio expert to examine the tape. According to forensic examiner Arlo West, the recording didn’t pass several of the “Seven Tenets of Audio Authenticity.”

Download (pdf) West’s complete report on his examination of the compact disk (CD) that he received from attorney Defilippis, who in turn received it from the records clerk at the San Jose Police Department.

Defilippis wanted West to testify in court personally, but the defense team didn’t have the money to fly West out from Maine. In his request filed with the court, Defilippis proposed to have West testify using video conference equipment. However, the judge denied his request.

In the request attorney Defilippis contended that Legge had talked to a female calltaker when he dialed 911, not a male calltaker. This contention is contradicted by all the SJPD records. He also claimed there were discrepancies between the times of the calls on Legge’s cellular phone records and the SJPD logs. However, this was explained as minor differences in the master clocks used by the two systems.

According to Defilippis, Nolan claims that certain statements made by Legge were “intentionally removed, redacted or selectively edited from the original recordings.” More specifically, Nolan claims that multiple recordings were used to create a single edited recording, which contained incriminating statements. Expert West spent most of his report explaining these differences.

West’s suspicions were first raised because the CD wasn’t consecutively numbered or dated, and that there was no verbal “slate” to introduce and end the recordings. He said that normally the person making the recording copy announces the date and time of the original recording and when the copy was made, the agency, the channel or console that was recorded and other information.

West also performed “waveform analysis” on the CD recordings, claiming to find various “spikes” and “transients” that indicated editing.

West concluded in his report that, “to a high degree of certainty,” the recordings couldn’t be verified as “accurate, true or authentic.” He said there gaps in the calls that indicated editing, but also that there were “multiple errors” in the court-recognized policies and procedures for handling evidence. Together, West said that the admissibility of the recordings was “questionable.”

West’s resume included his previous criminal case work, education and membership in professional organizations. He also included that he was an, “Accomplished Guitarist, Internationally Known Blues Musician and Songwriter.”