Opinion ID: 1750867
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Denial of admission of letter

Text: Defendant argues that the trial court erred in refusing to admit a note purportedly written by his deceased mother that placed him at home after midnight on the night of the murder. He asserts that it was reliable evidence and, for reasons of fairness, should have been admitted at trial. He alleges that this was an abuse of discretion depriving him of his constitutional right to due process. When reviewing an evidentiary decision, this Court will not reverse a trial court's exercise of its broad discretion absent a clear abuse. Forrest, 183 S.W.3d at 223. The evidence challenged here was allegedly discovered a few days after Defendant's mother passed away, and he asserts that his sister found the note among their mother's writings. His sister would have testified that the handwriting on the note was her mother's and that it was among other writings dating back many years. The note stated that Defendant was home the night of the murder by 12:15 a.m. and suggested that the police never questioned the mother about his whereabouts that night because she had trouble speaking due to a stroke. He speculates that the note was most likely written either near the time of the events or near the time of his mother's death 12 years later, as she may have feared dying without having ever communicated this information. Defendant admits that the letter does not clearly fit any traditional hearsay exceptions in Missouri, but argues that this Court should admit it under the residual hearsay exception because the note was reliable. This Court has never adopted the residual hearsay exception rule, which allows admission of statements not specifically covered by any other exception when they have equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness. [12] But, even if this exception were applicable to this case, Defendant fails to satisfy it. First, the letter does not give him a satisfactory alibi because the victim likely arrived home around 10:45 p.m., and her neighbor saw a man enter her apartment immediately. Defendant would have had an hour to commit the crime, walk the mile home at a reasonable pace, and arrive there by 12:15 a.m. Second, the note is not reliable. The authorship and the timing of the note are pure speculation; anyone could have penned it or his mother could have authored it at any point during a 12-year period. Given this uncertainty, the trustworthiness associated with hearsay recorded close in time to events or when in anticipation of impending death cannot be invoked here. Moreover, the declarant's relationship to Defendant and the fact that she did not communicate this evidence at the time of the crime raises the specter that the statement is an invention. Given the suspect nature of this hearsay, Defendant fails to show that the trial court abused its discretion by denying its admittance.