Opinion ID: 1407226
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Did the statement relate to the startling event?

Text: Mr. Lusk's testimony leaves no doubt that his daughter's account of the threat upon her life was related to the startling event consisting of the thirty-minute confrontation inside the defendant's automobile. We have no hesitancy in concluding that the statement related to the startling event. The defendant also attempts to avoid the excited utterance exception by arguing that Mr. Lusk could not actually hear the contents of the conversation between the defendant and the victim. We find no merit in this contention. We have previously held that [a] witness who testifies about an excited utterance of a third person need not be present at the exciting event as a condition for its admissibility. Syllabus Point 2, State v. Smith, 178 W.Va. 104, 358 S.E.2d 188 (1987). The rationale is that [t]he veracity of the declaration is not founded upon the witness's participation in the event, but upon the participation of the declarant. Id. at 110, 358 S.E.2d at 194. The fact that Mr. Lusk could not hear the conversation is irrelevant. Applying our three-part test, we conclude that the victim's extrajudicial statement to her father was made after she experienced a startling event of having her life threatened, was repeated without sufficient time to reflect and thereafter to fabricate the threat, and was related to the startling event. The victim's statement to her father, Mr. Lusk, is admissible as hearsay within the excited utterance exception. We therefore find that each level of the extrajudicial statement is admissible: the defendant's threat is admissible as non-hearsayan admission by a party-opponentunder Rule 801(d)(2), or alternatively as hearsay admissible under the Rule 803(3) state-of-mind exception; and the victim's recitation to her father is hearsay admissible as an excited utterance under Rule 803(2). [11]