Is a recorded statement admissible in a criminal case?

In People v. Fonville (1973) 35 Cal.App.3d 693 (Fonville), disapproved on other grounds in Donaldson v. Superior Court (1983) 35 Cal.3d 24, 32, the trial court ruled that a recorded statement was admissible. The reviewing court affirmed based on Evidence Code section 1421, noting: "[I]t would appear that the statements regarding what had been denied to the police, what had been told to the police regarding the declarant's state of intoxication, quantity of intoxicants taken, and when the decedent had left the cafe, indicate that it was in fact appellant whose words were on the recording. They are matters that are unlikely to have been known by anyone other than the appellant." (Fonville, supra, 35 Cal.App.3d at p. 709.)

A recorded jailhouse conversation was at issue in People v. Estrada (1979) 93 Cal.App.3d 76. The court concluded that the recording was authenticated under Evidence Code section 1413 because the investigator who made it identified the tape he used for the recording.⁴