Opinion ID: 2815638
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: The foundation of the government’s case was the 911 call Mr. Ballard placed on the morning of May 28, 2013. A recording of the call was made available to this court as part of the record. The government also provided this court with a transcript,4 which we have attached to this opinion as Appendix A. The 911 call lasted seventeen minutes and included four specific assertions by Mr. Ballard that, at some unspecified earlier point in time, Mr. Mayhand had threatened to stab him. The statements are: (1) at minute 1:22, “[h]e said he was going to pull a knife on me, and stab me”; (2) at minute 2:11, “[h]e said, ‘I should 4 The transcript was prepared by the government, but appellant does not object to its contents. 5 pull a knife on you and stab your bitch ass’”; (3) at minute 2:27, in response to a question from the operator asking where the knife was: “I have no idea, he said I should pull this knife on you . . .”; and, (4) at minute 6:15, “[n]o, I have not seen any weapons, but he said, ‘I should pull a knife on you and stab your bitch ass.’” The remainder of the call is a narration of Mr. Ballard’s walk from Ivory Walters Lane to the Denny’s on Benning Road, a distance of about ten blocks, apparently with Mr. Mayhand in close proximity. Interspersed between updates on his location, Mr. Ballard gives the 911 operator descriptions of himself and of Mr. Mayhand, as well as explanations of his involvement in the case against Mr. Mayhand’s brother. The recording also includes long periods of silence, some lasting over a minute. A few times, Mr. Ballard can be heard shouting angrily at someone, presumably Mr. Mayhand. At one point, Mr. Ballard tells the operator that Mr. Mayhand is “charging” him, and then shouts, “[t]hat’s why he’s gonna do fifteen years! The police is on the line, what you gonna do? Bring it on!” But nothing appears to come of the “charging”; Mr. Ballard immediately provides another update on his location and informs the operator that Mr. Mayhand is “just standing there looking at me now.” The call ultimately terminates after the police arrive and Mr. Ballard is heard making contact with them. 6 The police arrested Mr. Mayhand, and he was charged with threats and obstruction of justice. Prior to trial, the government moved for a ruling on the admissibility of the recording of Mr. Ballard’s 911 call. Over the defense’s objection, the court ruled that the government could play the entire call for the jury. The court reasoned that “the bulk of it is a present sense impression” and that “[t]he only part that does not get swept into that is the assertion about the threat that had happened previous to the call.” But the court determined that “those portions of the call can come in under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule.” The court explained: People do get—well, certainly, as I said earlier, if someone threatens to stab you with a knife and then follows you for a period of blocks down the street; that is an event that a reasonable person would—that a reasonable person would find to be an exciting event that would put them into a state of emotional agitation. So that element I believe is satisfied. The question is whether in this particular case Mr. Ballard was put into—was, in fact, put into such a state of emotional agitation. And I do find that he was. It is true that his conversation with the 911 operator is fairly level and coherent and balanced. He’s certainly not a hysteric, screaming into the phone. Over a period of time, engages in a reasonable conversation with the operator. But people exhibit their emotional agitation in different 7 ways. Not everyone gets hysterical. It does seem to me that there is strain in his voice throughout the call. Certainly he was concerned enough about the threat that he did call the police and remained on the police—or the entire 17 minutes it took for them to dispatch someone to come to get him. And I think most importantly, there are times during those 17 minutes when apparently there is an exchange between [Mr.] Ballard and [Mr.] Mayhand where he is screaming at [Mr.] Mayhand. Clearly on those parts of the call, he is emotionally agitated when he’s screaming at [Mr.] Mayhand. But immediately after engaging in this, he goes into the same conversational pattern with the operator, goes back to his reasonable tone of voice. And so it seems to me that he is making an effort to be understood by the operator, to talk reasonably with the operator and that is perhaps masking the submission of his emotional agitation. He has the ability to do that. But I do find that the agitation existed and was certainly corroborated then by the observations of the officers when he comes on the scene, that being in his—his head is or his neck is pulsating and that he’s sweating profusely, and that he articulates concern for his life based on his interaction with Mr. Mayhand. So I do find that throughout the call, while it’s not immediately apparent from the conversational pattern of the participants that [Mr.] Ballard was suffering from an emotional agitation. And I addressed temporal aspect earlier5 which is that in my mind it’s not just the threat, but it’s the threat and the 5 The court had earlier preliminarily observed that the temporal element is satisfied because it’s not just the threat that would excite a state of nervous excitement in the hearer. It is also being threatened and then being followed down the street. And so in that sense, I think, (continued…) 8 following down the street that causes the emotional agitation and that’s an ongoing stimulus that was sufficient to make, in my mind, the entire 911 call an excited utterance. Aside from the recording of Mr. Ballard’s 911 call, the only other evidence presented by the government at trial was the testimony of Officer Stephen Chih, one of the police officers who responded to the 911 call. Officer Chih testified that when he first arrived on the scene, Mr. Mayhand and Mr. Ballard were standing “15, 20 feet” apart. Because Mr. Mayhand matched the description provided to Officer Chih by the dispatcher, Officer Chih detained him. According to Officer Chih, Mr. Mayhand responded by “yell[ing] some expletives,” calling Mr. Ballard a “snitch,” and denying having done “anything [Mr. Ballard] said that I did.” Officer Chih then interviewed Mr. Ballard, who was “trembling,” had “beads of sweat on his face,” was “constantly looking over his shoulder,” was breathing “quick[ly],” and had a visible “vein along his neck . . . pulsating very quickly.” Based on this evidence, a jury convicted Mr. Mayhand of obstruction of justice and acquitted him of making threats. This appeal followed. (…continued) there’s an ongoing event that would reasonably engender a nervous excitement on the part of the victim. So the temporal element, I believe, is satisfied. 9