State v. Griego, 377 P.3d 1217

Between January and July 2013 four separate home-invasion sexual assaults and robberies occurred in Billings, Montana; victims were bound, assaulted with objects, threatened, and had property (phones, purses, guns) taken. Victims reported hearing camera-like clicks and believed they were photographed.
Billings media coverage reported details of the crimes, suspect physical description, safety tips, and later reported on the investigation and Griego’s arrest and past New Mexico sexual-assault conviction; online comments expressed community outrage.
Police identified Toby Griego after a Hobby Lobby employee recognized him from surveillance; investigators found photos and videos on Griego’s phone linking him to victims, and discovered a 2010 voice recording of Griego from an unrelated investigation.
Victim J.N. listened to the single 2010 voice exemplar and immediately and confidently identified it as her attacker’s voice; she was not given comparison samples.
Griego was charged with multiple counts (27 tried here) including sexual intercourse without consent, robbery, aggravated kidnapping, and related offenses; he moved for change of venue and to suppress J.N.’s voice identification; both motions were denied, and a jury convicted him on all counts.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Change of venue based on pretrial publicity	Publicity was inflammatory and pervasive; community prejudice prevented an impartial jury	Publicity was factual/objective; voir dire could uncover actual prejudice	Denied — no presumed prejudice; voir dire sufficed and court did not abuse discretion
Suppression of single-sample voice identification	Voice ID was reliable under totality of circumstances (victim’s attention, description, certainty, corroborating evidence)	Single-sample ID was impermissibly suggestive and risked irreparable misidentification	Denied — procedure was suggestive but totality (attention, description, certainty, corroborating evidence, time lapse) provided sufficient indicia of reliability

Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967) (single-suspect confrontations are generally condemned as suggestive)
United States v. Wade, 388 U.S. 218 (1967) (warning about suggestiveness of pretrial identification and its role in wrongful convictions)
Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723 (1963) (extreme pretrial publicity can deprive defendant of due process)
Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (1966) (publicity creating a "carnival atmosphere" can violate fair-trial rights)
State v. Johnson, 674 P.2d 1077 (Mont. 1983) (adopt totality-of-the-circumstances test for voice identifications)
State ex rel. Coburn v. Bennett, 655 P.2d 502 (Mont. 1982) (change of venue required where community prejudice was pervasive and demonstrative)
State v. Dryman, 269 P.2d 796 (Mont. 1954) (change of venue required where community sentiment and publicity made fair trial impossible)