This seems entirely fair and reasonable.
A guy gets out of a van (with some other guys) and allegedly stabs and kills the victim. The person driving the van eventually strikes a deal with prosecutors and testifies against the guy. Before trial, while in jail, the driver made a lot of phone calls, all of which were recorded. Defense counsel subpoenas these calls to see if the driver has said anything exculpatory or inconsistent with her prior statements to police. (She's already changed her story several times.)
No one objects to the subpoena, but on the criminal side, before the defense can get this evidence, the court has to review it in camera to see if there's anything relevant. But the trial judge is flummoxed. He first can't figure out what app to use to play the files, and later, realizes that there are tons and tons of calls, and doesn't want to spend the "hours and hours" it'd take listening to them. So he refuses to do so, saying that the defense hasn't made a specific enough showing of what's on the tapes. (The defense, in turn, says it doesn't yet know what's on the tapes because it's not yet allowed to listen to 'em, so has been as specific as it can be at this point.)
The Court of Appeal reverses. There was reason enough to believe that there might be relevant material on those tapes. So the trial judge was required to go through them. Even though that's admittedly a pain in the butt.
I sympathize with the trial court. I also wouldn't want to have to review hours and hours of tapes. But I suspect you could delegate the initial screening to court staff, or to a special master, or something like that. And I agree there might well be something on those tapes. So it's pretty important. Especially in a murder case, where there's a lot at stake.
Plus, although Justice Greenwood's opinion doesn't mention it, I think there may also be a fairness principle at stake here. Prosecutors routinely review and introduce jailhouse telephone recordings at trial. They clearly have sufficient access to those tapes, as well as sufficient staff to review them. What's good for one side seems equally good for the other. And if the law says that the trial court has to review them first before the defense can see them, well, then, that's what you gotta do. Not exactly cool for one side to have fairly unlimited access to tapes that the other side can't see because doing so would require too much work by the judge.
