Opinion ID: 2376213
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Challenged Hearsay

Text: Rule 803(2) of our Rules of Evidence provides that a statement relating to a startling event made while the declarant is under the stress of the excitement caused by the event is admissible, being an exception to the hearsay rule. The defendant argues that Ms. Clark's statements to Mr. Cote and Officer Spicuzza lack the element of spontaneity, making them unreliable and inadmissible. Considering her appearance and emotional state at about 4:30 a.m., which the witnesses corroborate, Ms. Clark clearly could be determined to have been laboring under the stress of her recent experience. The advisory committee notes following Rule 803 explain that to qualify as an excited utterance the time period between the event and the making of the statement is a relative consideration that is left to the trial justice's discretion, and if the trial justice is satisfied that the declarant was still laboring under the stress of the nervous excitement when he or she spoke the statement will be admissible. See Advisory Committee's Note to R.I. R.Evid. 803 (quoting State v. Creighton, 462 A.2d 980, 983 (R.I.1983)). We will not second guess a trial justice's discretion to admit or deny admission of an excited utterance, unless and until we are convinced that he or she was clearly wrong. State v. Krakue, 726 A.2d 458, 462 (R.I.1999) (per curiam). Recently this Court held that statements by a nursing home patient made only after he had calmed down from an earlier excitable experience would be admissibleas excited utterances because the guarantee of trustworthiness [for the excited-utterance exception] is assured as long as the declarant made the statement as an `instinctive outpouring' or an `effusion.' State v. Oisamaiye, 740 A.2d 338, 339 (R.I.1999) (quoting State v. St. Jean, 469 A.2d 736, 738 (R.I.1983)). Given the corroborating nature of the overall testimony given by Gary Cote and Officer Spicuzza concerning Ms. Clark's appearance, her injuries, and nature of the spontaneous utterances she made to them, we are satisfied that the trial justice did not err in permitting Mr. Cote and Officer Spicuzza to testify about the statements Ms. Clark made to them. The defendant's appeal is denied and dismissed, his conviction is affirmed, and the papers of this case are remanded to the Superior Court.