Opinion ID: 1058123
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Is an Excited Utterance “Testimonial”?

Text: The next issue presented in both cases is whether the statements, alleged by the State to be “excited utterances,” can be classified as “testimonial.” The State argues that an excited utterance can never constitute testimonial hearsay because it is made spontaneously in reaction to a startling event; thus, the declarant speaks in response to that event rather than in anticipation of bearing witness. Various jurisdictions disagree on this issue. Some agree that an excited utterance cannot constitute testimonial hearsay. See United States v. Brun, 416 F.3d 703, 707 (8th Cir. 2005); Anderson v. State, 111 P.3d 350, 354-55 (Alaska Ct. App. 2005); People v. Corella, 18 Cal. Rptr.3d 770, 776 (Cal. Ct. App. 2004); People v. Moscat, 777 N.Y.S.2d 775, 880 (N.Y. Crim. Ct. App. 2004); Key v. State, 173 S.W.3d 72, 76 (Tex. Ct. App. 2005). However, Crawford seems to reject this notion. Referencing the facts of White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346 (1992), wherein a child victim made “spontaneous declarations” to an investigating police officer, the Crawford Court characterized those statements as “testimonial,” implicitly rejecting the notion that excited utterances are nontestimonial. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 58 n.8. A second group of cases holds that the excited nature of the utterance has no bearing on whether a particular statement is testimonial. Instead, the focus is entirely on the declarant’s objectively reasonable expectations. See State v. Parks, 116 P.3d 631, 639 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2005) (commenting that “[w]hile a declarant’s emotional state may ‘still’ reflection, . . . such a declarant may nevertheless reasonably appreciate or expect that his statement will have an impact on whether an arrest is made, charges are brought or guilt is attributed”), review granted, (Ariz., Nov. 29, 2005); Lopez, 888 So.2d at 699-700 (stating that “ a startled person who identifies a suspect in a statement made to a police officer at the scene of a crime surely knows that the statement is a form of accusation that will be used against the suspect”); Commonwealth v. Williams, 836 N.E.2d 335, 338 (Mass. App. Ct. 2005) (assault victim’s statements to police made while she was still “shaken, . . . very upset, . . . crying, teary eyed, red eyed” were nevertheless testimonial).20 A third group of courts—the majority—considers the totality of the circumstances under which the excited utterances were made to decide whether they are “testimonial.” These jurisdictions consider the testimonial hearsay analysis and the excited utterance analysis to be interdependent. In some cases, because the excited utterance is made to police in response to questioning, the court looks to whether the police action amounted to “interrogation,” which would make the statement testimonial under Crawford. See, e.g., Drayton v. United States, 877 A.2d 145, 150 (D.C. 2005) (distinguishing between initial on-the-scene questioning done for the purpose of 20 The Massachusetts Appeals Court based its holding on a definition of “police interrogation” that includes preliminary fact gathering and assessment of whether a crime has taken place. W illiams, 836 N.E.2d at 338 (citing Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 833 N.E.2d 549 (Mass. 2005)). -13- securing the scene [nontestimonial] and questioning done for the purpose of investigation and factgathering [testimonial]); Hammon, 829 N.E.2d at 446 (holding that “statements to . . . officers in response to general initial inquiries are nontestimonial but statements made for purposes [of either the declarant or the questioner] of preserving the accounts of potential witnesses are testimonial”); State v. Wright, 701 N.W.2d 802, 811-14 (Minn. 2005) (holding that statements made for the purpose of seeking police intervention nontestimonial; victims, not police, initiated the encounter, and the victims remained emotionally distraught throughout the entire conversation); Hembertt, 696 N.W.2d at 482 (noting that some excited utterances are testimonial and others are not—the pertinent inquiry is whether the declarant was aware or expecting that his or her statements might later be used at a trial); People v. Coleman, 791 N.Y.S.2d 112, 114 (N.Y. App. Div. 2005) (holding that statements made were nontestimonial because the primary motivation of the declarant was to call for assistance). In some cases, the courts have recognized that the startling event giving rise to an excited utterance may be of such a nature that it dissipates the very qualities that otherwise might render the statement testimonial. See, e.g., People v. King, 121 P.3d 234, 240 (Colo. Ct. App. 2005) (holding that where the statements were made to police in a non-custodial setting, without indicia of formality, and while the victim was under considerable pain and distress, the statements could not be viewed by any reasonable person as being made with the expectation that they would be used prosecutorially and thus were nontestimonial); State v. Lewis, 619 S.E.2d 830, 842 (N.C. 2005) (concluding that the victim’s excited utterances at the scene were non-testimonial because (1) the statements were given during the preliminary stages of the investigation, (2) police questioning was unstructured, and (3) the victim would not have reasonably expected that her excited statements would be used at trial, but also holding that the victim’s later off-the-scene identification of the defendant was testimonial, stating that “structured police questioning is a key consideration in determining whether a statement is or is not testimonial”). We reject both per se approaches—the one that automatically exempts all excited utterances from classification as testimonial hearsay and the one that effectively disregards the excited nature of the utterance. We favor an approach that considers both the testimonial hearsay analysis and the excited utterance analysis and that considers the totality of the circumstances in order to determine whether a particular excited utterance should be deemed testimonial. The primary consideration under such an approach remains whether the declarant was acting as a “witness”—that is, “bearing testimony” against the accused. To this end, we adopt the definition of “testimony” referenced by the Supreme Court in Crawford: “‘[a] solemn declaration or affirmation made for the purpose of establishing or proving some fact.’” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 51 (quoting Webster). We also note that Crawford emphasized that the types of statements the Court considered “testimonial” were those formal types of statements—including those made in a police interrogation—that a reasonable declarant would expect to be used prosecutorially or at trial. Id. at 51-52. -14-