The Defendant in Wilkerson V

The defendant in Wilkerson v. State, a case in which the defendant was alleged to have delivered a Schedule VI controlled substance (marijuana) to an undercover drug purchaser wired for sound, contended that the audiocassette recording made by the undercover purchaser had not been properly authenticated as genuine and had been erroneously admitted against him. The allegation that the defendant offered was that no person who had spoken on the tape had testified or otherwise authenticated the tape as being the genuine article, but the undercover purchaser testified to the genuine quality of the audiotape recording. The Court of Appeals of Arkansas reviewed the allegation concerning authentication and concluded:

A) if an undercover agent did not see an undercover purchaser at all times during which a cassette recording was made of a drug deal, that the tape contents could not be authenticated.
B) an audiocassette could not be authenticated unless all the persons involved reviewed its contents and testified concerning the genuine quality of the audiotape.
C) the trial court abused its discretion in permitting the admission of the audiocassette recording because there were times during the actual recording that the undercover officer was unable to observe the events that the audiocassette recorded.
D) the undercover officer's testimony sufficiently authenticated the cassette tape because the officer gave the blank tape and recorder to the undercover purchaser and retrieved it from him upon completion of the deal, and the only voices on the tape would have belonged to the defendant and to the undercover agent.