Opinion ID: 1472515
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence of Ownership

Text: Appellant argues that Rebecca Lanning's testimony about her father's ownership of the car, to which he objected in the trial court, was inadmissible hearsay. We find no error. We have often recognized that the trial court is entrusted with broad discretion to determine the substance, form, and quantum of evidence which is to be presented to a jury. ( William) Johnson v. United States, 452 A.2d 959, 960 (D.C. 1982). We review such determinations only for abuse of discretion. Perritt v. United States, 640 A.2d 702, 705 (D.C.1994). Whether a particular statement is inadmissible as hearsay or admissible under an exception to the hearsay rule, however, is a question of law that we review de novo. See Brown v. United States, 840 A.2d 82, 88 (D.C.2004). At trial, the prosecutor asked Rebecca Lanning, Do you know who the registered owner of the car is? Defense counsel objected. After the court said, Overruled, Ms. Lanning answered, My father. [8] Appellant now argues that the reason Rebecca Lanning believed her father legally owned the car is simply because that is what he told her. A non-owner of a titled object such as a car, he contends (without any citation of authority), cannot testify as to who actually does legally own the property without ... repeating information that he has gathered from some other source  either from a report made by another person or from information contained in a legal document. That is not necessarily true. Ms. Lanning, as the owner's daughter, was in a position to observe conduct and events that would impart personal knowledge of the fact that the car belonged to her father. As the government points out, it is quite possible, for example, that she was present when her father purchased the car or that she researched its ownership for insurance purposes. But we need not engage in such suppositions or assumptions. It is enough to conclude that appellant's hearsay challenge to Ms. Lanning's testimony is based entirely on speculation and conjecture, and that he has therefore failed to establish that it was hearsay at all. Ms. Lanning was never asked how she knew that the car belonged to her father, and thus there is no basis to believe that her only source of that information was what her father told her. Indeed, her knowledge of the car's ownership may well have been based on the most probable scenario of non-assertive conduct  her father's routine exercise of dominion and control over a vehicle that he owned and permitted his daughter to use at his pleasure. Even if the record established (which it does not) that her testimony was hearsay, its admission would be harmless because the car was indisputably in her possession, and appellant did not claim that he had her permission, or her father's, to use it. We note that Ms. Lanning testified affirmatively that she never gave either appellant or Mr. Delgado permission to use the car. Defense counsel did not object to this testimony, nor would any objection have been valid, because the testimony went directly to whether Ms. Lanning, as some other person empowered to consent on the owner's behalf, [9] had authorized its use by appellant. We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion, and committed no error of law, in allowing Ms. Lanning to testify that her father was the registered owner of the car. The judgment of conviction is Affirmed.