Opinion ID: 1044002
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Victim's Statements to Mr. Trentham

Text: The Court of Criminal Appeals held that Ms. Lackey's statements to Mr. Trentham were nontestimonial. We agree. The victim indicated to Mr. Trentham that she had just escaped her apartment after her assailant heard a noise and left her bedroom to investigate. She was naked from the waist down, reflecting her hurry, and scared to death. The victim's appearance and statements implied that she feared her attacker might still be on the premises and that her emergency was ongoing. As recited by the Court of Criminal Appeals, [t]he victim was speaking to her neighbor directly after escaping an attack, and there was no indication she expected the statements to be used in the investigation or prosecution of her attacker. State v. Parker, No. E2008-02541-CCA-R3-CD, 2010 WL 3706090, at  (Tenn.Crim.App. Sept. 22, 2010). As we recognized in Franklin, there is a growing consensus that statements establishing the identity of the perpetrator are nontestimonial when made in informal settings during the immediate aftermath of a crime. Franklin, 308 S.W.3d at 820. Thus, we held in Franklin that the license number of the vehicle driven by the perpetrator provided to a robbery victim by a private citizen immediately after the crime was nontestimonial hearsay. Id. at 804, 822. See also, e.g., State v. Slater, 285 Conn. 162, 939 A.2d 1105, 1114-15 (2008) (crying victim's statement to two private citizens on street that a black male with a big knife just raped her was not testimonial because the victim clearly was seeking aid and the citizens' response in taking the victim inside and calling the police indicated that their primary purpose was to aid her). The same result obtains regarding the victim's statements to Mr. Trentham. Hearsay statements deemed nontestimonial may properly be admitted under a recognized exception to the hearsay rule. See Bryant, 131 S.Ct. at 1155 (recognizing that, where the primary purpose of an interrogation renders the resulting declarations nontestimonial, the admissibility of a statement is the concern of state and federal rules of evidence, not the Confrontation Clause). In pretrial proceedings, the defense conceded that the victim's statements to Mr. Trentham fell within the hearsay exception for excited utterances. See Tenn. R. Evid. 803(2). [8] As did the Court of Criminal Appeals, we agree and hold that the trial court committed no error in admitting Mr. Trentham's testimony about the victim's statements to him.