Opinion ID: 1974989
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Excited Utterances Instruction

Text: Anderson's next point on appeal is that the Superior Court Justice committed reversible error in refusing to charge the jury as requested that Anderson's extrajudicial statements made to John Taylor, Norman Estes, Henry Lewis and Michelina Collelo Taylor, while in a nervous state, immediately upon returning to the Taylor apartment after the shooting were inherently trustworthy statements within the excited utterance principle as defined by Rule 803(2), M.R.Evid. These statements, as variously testified to, were to the effect that Anderson did not intend to kill Lalumiere, that he did not mean to shoot the guy, that he aimed for the man's shoulder, that he wished he hadn't shot the man. There is no merit to this claim. In the first place, the statements were not admitted under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule, but under Rule 801(d)(2) as admissions offered against the defendant as his own statements. Secondly, even if the statements had been admitted as excited utterances under Rule 803(2), M.R.Evid., that would not justify a binding instruction by the presiding justice to the jury that such utterances are inherently trustworthy. Their admission in evidence as excited utterances would only mean that the statements had, preliminarily at least, overcome the presumption of untrustworthiness which the hearsay rule generally attaches to extrajudicial statements, on the theory that they were made under conditions which stilled the voice of reflective self-interest and suspended the individual's powers of fabrication. As any other evidence, however, their reliability remains for ultimate jury assessment. As in the case of dying declarations, it would have been the task of the jury to determine the weight and credibility to be given to Anderson's declarations, if admitted as excited utterances, assigning to them such weight, or none at all, as in their judgment the underlying facts proved or disproved that the statements were factually made under the stress of excitement caused by the coincident event or shortly resulting therefrom and were not the result of a reflecting mind seeking exculpatory excuses. See State v. Chaplin, Me., 286 A.2d 325, 332 (1972). The trial Justice was correct in leaving to the jury the issue of the trustworthiness of Anderson's extrajudicial statements.