Opinion ID: 2377179
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Opinion Within Statement

Text: Jones complains that the statement of the second declarant, to the effect that the little car was trying to catch up with the police car was an inadmissible conclusion or opinion. In Booth, we recognized that people speaking without reflection often cast their language in terms of inference or opinion. 306 Md. 326-37, 508 A.2d 976. We quoted with approval the conclusion of Professor Jon Waltz that: If the out-of-court declaration is not the sort of conscious deduction which the conditions attaching to the present sense impression exception would themselves prohibit, it should be receivable as a shorthand fact description. Booth, supra, 306 Md. at 327, 508 A.2d 976, quoting Waltz, The Present Sense Impression Exception to the Rule Against Hearsay: Origins and Attributes, 66 Iowa L.Rev. 869, 881-82 (1981). Although couched in terms of an opinion, the statement in the context of this case is the quintessence of a shorthand statement of fact, describing in few words a number of facts about the proximity, apposition, and movement of two motor vehicles. The form in which the information was communicated did not render it inadmissible.