Opinion ID: 1530538
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Delaware Constitution Confrontation of Witnesses Excited Utterance Exception

Text: The final question presented by Gannon in this appeal is whether admitting a statement into evidence under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule violated his right of confrontation under the state Bill of Rights in Article I of the Delaware Constitution. Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, in a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1833, the United States Supreme Court specifically held that the federal Bill of Rights afforded no protection against any state's action. Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) 243, 8 L.Ed. 672 (1833). In that opinion, Chief Justice Marshall explained why the entire federal Bill of Rights was intended solely as a limitation on the exercise of power by the government of the United States, and was not applicable to the legislation of the states: Each state established a constitution for itself, and in that constitution provided such limitations and restrictions on the powers of its particular government as its judgment dictated .... In their several constitutions [the states] have imposed such restrictions on their respective governments as their own wisdom suggested; such as they deemed most proper for themselves. It is a subject on which they judge exclusively .... Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. (7 Pet.) at 247-48. From the Declaration of Independence until the Civil War, state constitutional declarations or bills of rights were the primary guarantors of individual liberties against infringement by state governments. In 1925, there was a paradigm shift in the operation of America's state and federal jurisprudence. The United States Supreme Court began applying the Bill of Rights to the states by incorporating the federal Bill of Rights into the Fourteenth Amendment through the Due Process Clause. [1] Thereafter, the United States Supreme Court continued to hold that other selected provisions of the federal Bill of Rights also afforded protection against state action by virtue of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, by the process now known as the incorporation doctrine. [2] Earlier in this opinion, we noted that the United States Supreme Court has held the Confrontation Clause in the Sixth Amendment is applicable to the states by virtue of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 403, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1067, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). Federal Constitutional standards, however, set only a minimum level of protection. [3] The declaration of rights or substantive provisions in a state's constitution may, and often do, provide for broader or additional rights. See Jennifer Friesen, State Constitutional Law: Litigating Individual Rights, Claims and Defenses § 1-6 (2d ed.1996 & Supp. 1997). The expansion beyond federally guaranteed individual liberties by a state constitution is attributable to a variety of reasons: differences in textual language, legislative history, pre-existing state law, structural differences, matters of particular concern, and state traditions. [4] In this case, we begin our analysis of Gannon's claim under the Delaware Constitution by examining the history of the right to confrontation in a Delaware criminal proceeding. Delaware enacted a Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules on September 11, 1776. Section 14 provided, inter alia, that in all prosecutions for criminal offenses, every man hath a right ... to be confronted with the accusers or witnesses.... When the 1776 Constitution of the State of Delaware was adopted nine days later, it provided, inter alia, in Article 25, that  the common law of England, as well as so much of the statute law as have been heretofore adopted in practice in this state, shall remain in force, unless they shall be altered by a future law of the Legislature; such parts only excepted as are repugnant to the rights and privileges contained in this constitution and the declaration of rights ... agreed to by this convention. (emphasis added). The common law of England had recognized spontaneous declarations as an exception to the common law right of confrontation since at least 1693. In an action for assault and battery upon the wife of the plaintiff, Lord Holt held that what the wife said immediately upon the hurt received, and before that she had time to devise or contrive anything for her own advantage, might be given in evidence. 6 Wigmore, Evidence § 1747 (Chadbourn rev.1976) ( citing Thompson v. Trevanion, Skinner 402 (1693)). Therefore, the cognizable common law hearsay exception for spontaneous declarations or excited utterances would be consistent with, not repugnant to, the right of confrontation in Delaware's 1776 Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules. When Delaware adopted its 1792 Constitution, its text was not identical to Delaware's Constitution of 1776. The Delaware Constitution of 1792 also was not a mirror image of the United States Constitution that had been adopted just a few years earlier. Claudio v. State, Del.Supr., 585 A.2d 1278, 1289 (1991). The Delaware Bill of Rights, in Article I of the Delaware Constitution of 1792, included many of the provisions that had been stated separately in the 1776 Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules. The right of confrontation, in particular, as set forth in Article I of the 1792 Delaware Constitution, was not only worded differently than the 1791 Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, [5] but it was also different than the analogous right in the 1776 Delaware Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides, in part, that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him.... Section 14 of the 1776 Delaware Declaration of Rights and Fundamental Rules provided the right to be confronted with the accusers or witnesses. Article I, Section 7 in Delaware's 1792 Constitution, however, read that the accused had the right to meet the witnesses in their examination face to face: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath a right to be heard by himself and his counsel, to be plainly and fully informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to meet the witnesses in their examination face to face, to have compulsory process in due time, on application by himself, his friends or counsel, for obtaining witnesses in his favour, and a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury: He shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself; nor shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, unless by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land. (emphasis added). In this case, we are not called upon to construe the meaning of face to face. See Jennifer Friesen, State Constitutional Law: Litigating Individual Rights, Claims and Defenses § 12-12 (2d ed.1996 & Supp.1997). [6] The precise question presented in this case is whether the witness who was being met face to face by Gannon at trial could give testimony that included hearsay statements. The United States Supreme Court has noted that the admissibility of hearsay statements raises concerns lying at the periphery of those that the Confrontation Clause is designed to address. White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 358, 112 S.Ct. 736, 744, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992); Coy v. Iowa, 487 U.S. 1012, 1016, 108 S.Ct. 2798, 2800, 101 L.Ed.2d 857 (1988). In that regard, the words law of the land at the end of Article I, Section 7 of the 1792 Delaware Constitution are significant. It is now well established that the phrase nor shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, unless by ... the law of the land in Article I, Section 7 of the Delaware Constitution has substantially the same meaning as nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law  in the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Opinion of the Justices, Del.Supr., 246 A.2d 90 (1968). The meaning of those phrases was explained by United States Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story: Lord Coke says, that [the words by the law of the land] mean by due process of law, that is, without due presentment or indictment, and being brought in to answer thereto by due process of the common law. So that this clause [i.e., the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment] in effect affirms the right of trial according to the process and proceedings of the common law. 3 J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, § 1783 (1833) (citations omitted) (emphasis added). Thus, when Article I, Section 7 of Delaware's 1792 Constitution is read in pari materia, it gave the accused the right to meet the witnesses in their examination face to face pursuant to the law of the land, i.e., a trial in accordance with the contemporary common law rules of evidence. Because the right to trial according to the process and proceedings of the common law rules of evidence in 1792 had recognized the excited utterance exception to the hearsay prohibition since 1693, it was part of the law of the land by which the witnesses would be examined face to face. Article I, Section 7 of the current Delaware Constitution of 1897 still provides that [i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath a right ... to meet witnesses in their examination face to face ... nor shall he be deprived of life, liberty or property unless by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.  The spontaneous declaration exception to the hearsay rule was part of the evidentiary common law of the land when both that phrase and the right of face to face confrontation were simultaneously written into the Delaware Constitution of 1792. Therefore, we hold that the admission of a properly qualified excited utterance into evidence at trial does not violate the confrontation rights afforded to an accused in Delaware since 1792 by Article I, Section 7 of the current Delaware Constitution of 1897. Thus, Gannon's challenge under the Delaware Constitution is also without merit. Compare McGriff v. State, Del.Supr., 672 A.2d 1027, 1030 (1996).