By BJ Austin
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-848659.mp3
Dallas, TX –
The federal bribery and extortion trial of former Dallas City Councilman Don Hill and four others resumes today after a week-long recess. KERA's BJ Austin says prosecutors are working to build their case using the defendants own words in HOURS of wiretapped conversations. One local jury consultant says "wiretaps" are a powerful courtroom weapon.
Federal prosecutors taped 30 thousand conversations during the three year investigation. In the three days of testimony held so far in the trial, jurors have considered more than 100 pieces of evidence, most of it transcripts and audio from FBI wiretaps.
(phone rings) Hello. Hey Councilman. Yessir. How you doin'? Hey Darren, how you doing man? Doin' fine, man.
Jason Bloom Bloom Strategic Consultants has been advising lawyers on juries for 13 years. He says wiretapped conversations make for a power-packed courtroom presentation.
Bloom: What the wiretapping does, and the reason why it's so powerful is because it picks the exact words used by the person who's being recorded, as opposed to jurors listening to re-creations or memories from the witness stand.
Consider this taped conservation between Don Hill and Darren Reagan: two of the four defendants accused of extorting cash, consulting and construction contracts for friends and associates in return for favorable votes at City Hall on low income housing developments. The two are discussing housing developer Bill Fisher.
Wiretap: Bill want to use people that he can manipulate and pressure them to knock the price, the cost down . I told him all of these are reputable African American firms. (That's right.) But, as it stands, we just delay it another two weeks. (All right, very good.)
Bloom: And why it's also so important is because more than 90% of human communication involves HOW it is said; in other words, the tone and tenor of the voice. So we use the how it is said to gauge the veracity, truthfulness and credibility of what is said. And that's why the audio can be so powerful.
Victor Vital, defense attorney for defendant Sheila Farrington Hill, says the wiretap audio can also be manipulated, and taken out of context.
Vital: What we think that the jurors will get a chance to see and hear is that when you examine these wiretaps in full context, they don't show anything close to what the government thinks they show.
But, Attorney Clint David, not associated with the case, believes it will be difficult for the defense to surmount the arsenal of wiretaps prosecutors plan to present.
David: Any one of them perhaps could be explained away, misinterpreted. But after you hear weeks of wiretaps from all different people sort of circling the same area, it can be very, very difficult to explain away. It's called the cumulative effect, and it can be quite devastating for the defense.
What defense attorneys will have to explain are comments like this from Darren Reagan.
Wiretap: (talking) Lemme just make it real short and sweet, Bill. Our Councilman is not happy.
Link To Archive of Evidence Introduced at Trial, Including Wiretap Audio