Opinion ID: 658172
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Statements Admitted As Present Sense Impressions

Text: 35 Ignacio claims error in the district court's admission of the victim's statements to her sister under the present sense impression exception. This exception allows for the admission of hearsay statements describing or explaining an event or condition made while the declarant was perceiving the event or condition, or immediately thereafter. 6 Guam Code Ann. Sec. 803(1). While her older sister was giving her a regularly scheduled bath on the evening of the molestation, the victim would not allow her sister to wash her vaginal area, complaining that her pee-pee hurt. Since the victim made the statements while she was experiencing the pain, they come within the present sense impression exception. 36 Neither the Supreme Court nor this court has ruled as to whether or not the present sense impression exception is a firmly rooted exception to the rule against hearsay. We need not reach this question, however, because we find that there were sufficient indicia of reliability, considering the totality of the circumstances surrounding the statement, as to the veracity of the statement. See Wright, 497 U.S. at 821-22, 110 S.Ct. at 3149-50. Rather than enunciate a rigid test for reliability, the Court stated that the unifying principle is that these factors relate to whether the child declarant was particularly likely to be telling the truth when the statement was made. Id. at 822, 110 S.Ct. at 3150. 37 Here, the nearness in time of the statement to the molestation (later that day), the naturalness of the situation in which the victim made the statement (during a regular activity in which she was used to her sister washing her vaginal area), and the expression of severe pain (akin to the self-interest rationale behind the medical exception), all mitigate against the statement's fabrication. Thus, its admission did not violate the Confrontation Clause. 38