Opinion ID: 2354118
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appellant's Excited Utterances

Text: Appellant claims that, within a short period of time after the shooting in the alley, he told Bernard Coleman and Calvin Brown that two men tried to rob him. The trial court prohibited all three  appellant, Coleman, and Brown  from testifying about those statements. [19] Appellant maintains that the court's decision was based on the erroneous legal conclusion that statements should not be admitted if they are `self-serving' or presented to the court through a witness who is not `disinterested.' We agree with appellant, but only to the extent that his argument applies to the proffered testimony of Mr. Brown. This case involves two potentially contradictory principles of the law of evidence. The first is the general rule that [w]hen the defendant seeks to introduce his own prior statement for the truth of the matter asserted, it is hearsay, and it is not admissible. United States v. Marin, 669 F.2d 73, 84 (2d Cir.1982). The second is the well-established proposition that a declarant's prior statement is admissible, under certain circumstances, as an excited or spontaneous utterance, a well-recognized exception to the hearsay rule. E.g., Smith v. United States, 666 A.2d 1216, 1221 (D.C.1995). There are three basic requirements for admission as a spontaneous utterance: (1) a serious occurrence which causes a state of nervous excitement or physical shock in the declarant, (2) a declaration made within a reasonably short period of time after the occurrence so as to assure that the declarant has not reflected upon his statement or premeditated or constructed it, and (3) the presence of circumstances which, in their totality, suggest spontaneity and sincerity of the remark. Id. at 1222. Because the decision whether a statement is admissible as a spontaneous utterance depends on the particular facts of each case and is thus a discretionary matter, this court reviews such matters only for abuse of discretion. Id. We will reverse a decision either to admit or to exclude a spontaneous utterance only if that ruling is clearly erroneous. See Reyes-Contreras v. United States, 719 A.2d 503, 505-506 (D.C. 1998); Lyons v. United States, 683 A.2d 1080, 1083 (D.C.1996). The trial court's decision to exclude appellant's testimony about his own statements to Mr. Coleman when he encountered him just after the shooting was based on two findings: first, that there was no evidence corroborating appellant's testimony, and second, that appellant's testimony was inherently unreliable because he had an incentive to lie, namely, the fact that he was facing a very serious charge. Appellant argues that the trial judge erroneously prevented [him] from testifying to his excited utterance based on the incorrect legal conclusion that a defendant's interest in the case automatically defeats admissibility. He also asserts that the judge's remark that the statement was uncorroborated was both factually and legally erroneous. As the government correctly points out in its brief, this court has not explicitly addressed to what extent the excited utterance analysis is impacted by the facts that (1) the declarant happens to be the defendant, and (2) the statement is exculpatory. . . . We have found no case law from this jurisdiction directly on point, and we are not willing to rule, either as a general proposition or in the specific context of this case, that a criminal defendant, through his own testimony, can authenticate his own excited utterance. [20] Moreover, because evidentiary rulings such as these are discretionary, we have no basis to conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in requiring more corroborative evidence under the circumstances, particularly when Coleman's testimony was inadequate and no other testimony was forthcoming. We hold, therefore, that the trial court's ruling that appellant could not testify about his own excited utterance does not warrant reversal. But that does not end the matter. Appellant also argues that, by refusing to allow Mr. Brown to testify about the excited utterance, [21] the trial judge erroneously created a categorical rule that statements conveyed to the court by witnesses friendly to the defense are inadmissible as excited utterances. This is not an accurate description of what the trial judge did. Rather, the judge appears to have based his ruling mainly on the absence of evidence about the length of time between the events in the alley and appellant's statement to Mr. Brown. In so ruling, however, the judge committed reversible error. This court has consistently held . . . that a lapse of time, while a relevant factor, is not dispositive on the question of admissibility [of an excited utterance]. Bryant v. United States, 859 A.2d 1093, 1107 (D.C.2004) (citations omitted); see Price v. United States, 545 A.2d 1219, 1226 (D.C.1988) (a lapse of time is relevant, but not controlling); Bandoni v. United States, 171 A.2d 748, 750 (D.C. 1961) (time alone is not controlling in determining the spontaneity of an exclamation). Thus the trial court erred by insisting that appellant show exactly how much time elapsed between the events in the alley and his statement to Mr. Brown. Appellant had already established the proximity of the alley to Brown's apartment and had stated that he ran there from the alley, stopping only briefly at Ms. Jones' apartment. Brown testified that appellant, when he arrived, looked hysterical, looked scared, real scared, was terrified, and was shaking. These details plainly supported appellant's claim that at the time he spoke with Mr. Brown, he was still reacting to the excitement of the incident. In addition, there is no case law in this jurisdiction to support the notion that a witness must be disinterested or neutral in order to testify to someone else's spontaneous utterance. As we have pointed out, the trial court concluded that Mr. Brown was not a reliable witness because he was appellant's longtime friend. This, however, was essentially a credibility determination which should have been left to the jury. Whether Brown should be disbelieved because he was appellant's friend, and thus not an independent witness, would affect only the weight of Brown's testimony; it would not, by itself, render Brown's testimony inadmissible. See Newman v. United States, 705 A.2d 246, 259 (D.C.1997) ([i]n evaluating the reliability of the proffer . . . the court must not seek to evaluate the reliability of the witness  (emphasis in original)). By declaring Mr. Brown inherently unreliable as a witness, the court made it impossible for appellant to present evidence related to his actions in response to the alleged attack. As a result of the court's ruling, appellant was barred from presenting testimony that was crucial to his defense. Because we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in preventing Mr. Brown from testifying to appellant's statements that someone tried to rob him, we must determine whether that error was harmless under the standard set forth in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946); see, e.g., Smith, 666 A.2d at 1225. Under that standard, this court must be satisfied with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error. Kotteakos, 328 U.S. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239. Appellant's defense was that he shot Butler in self-defense. To this end, he sought to show that Butler and another man tried to rob him in the alley at gun-point, and that shortly after the incident he told this to both Mr. Coleman and Mr. Brown. Although we do not find error on this record with respect to what appellant said to Mr. Coleman, the trial court's evidentiary ruling as to the testimony of Mr. Brown prevented appellant from presenting any evidence about his conversations with either man. Consequently, the jury was left to wonder why he never mentioned the attack to his two friends, especially considering that he saw both of them only moments after the alleged attempted robbery. In these circumstances we cannot conclude that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the trial court's error, id. at 765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, and accordingly we hold that the error was not harmless.