Opinion ID: 1697763
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Florida Evidence Law

Text: A review of Florida's case law reveals that Professor Thayer's broad view of the res gestae exception was applied in Florida as early as 1942. In Tampa Electric Co. v. Getrost, 151 Fla. 558, 10 So.2d 83 (1942), an assistant to an electric lineman was permitted to testify that the lineman told him that he had called the plant and ordered the power in the line cut off. Id. at 84. The lineman had proceeded to work on the wire and was electrocuted. Id. This Court held the conversation was admissible, observing that the statement was not infected with the vices which make such declarations usually inadmissible. At the time it was uttered there was no occasion for it to have resulted from reflection or premeditation, nor was there motive to make it self-serving. Id. at 85. [12] Nevertheless, Wigmore's theory requiring a startling event in order for the res gestae exception to be invoked was more often referenced in Florida's case law before the adoption of the evidence code. Declarations were found admissible under the res gestae label if the declarations were the natural emanations or outgrowths of the act or occurrence in litigation, although not precisely concurrent in point of time, if they were yet voluntarily and spontaneously made so nearly contemporaneous as to be in the presence of the transaction which they illustrate and explain, and were made under such circumstances as necessarily to exclude the idea of design or deliberation. State v. Williams, 198 So.2d 21, 22 (Fla. 1967) (quoting Washington v. State, 86 Fla. 533, 98 So. 605, 608 (1923), wherein a declaration emanating two minutes after a shooting was admitted); see also Johnson v. State, 314 So.2d 248, 251 (Fla. 1st DCA 1975) (applying a four-pronged test: the statement must be the natural emanation or outgrowth of the act or occurrence in litigation, made contemporaneously with the act of violence, made voluntarily and spontaneously, and made without any indication of reflection or premeditation); Elmore v. State, 291 So.2d 617, 619 (Fla. 4th DCA 1974) (applying a four-pronged test: the statement must be spontaneous, made by one who witnessed the act concerning which the statement was made, made at the scene of the homicide, made in the sight or hearing of the accused or victim, and made about a relevant material issue in the case), overruled on other grounds by Martin v. State, 342 So.2d 501, 503 (Fla. 1977). To be sure, in Florida the act or occurrence in litigation referred to a violent act, an exciting event that produced a declaration out of nervous excitement. See, e.g., Johnson, 314 So.2d at 251 (affirming admission of statements that emanated fifteen to thirty minutes after a stabbing); Lawrence v. State, 294 So.2d 371, 373 (Fla. 1st DCA 1974) (Res gestae refers to statements made immediately before, or immediately after the commission of a crime, by the accused, victim, or a bystander, as a spontaneous reaction or utterance stimulated by the excitement of the occasion. (quoting Charles Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Evidence  297, at 60 (13th ed.1972))); Elmore, 291 So.2d at 619 (holding statement of an unidentified bystander, which was made at the murder scene and within seconds of the shooting, was admissible), overruled on other grounds by Martin, 342 So.2d at 503; Washington, 118 So.2d at 653 (Statements or acts of the injured person made or done at a time immediately prior to the offense or so near to it as to preclude the idea of forethought, and tending to elucidate a main fact in issue may be admissible as part of the res gestae. (citing 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law  672, at 1063)). In Johnson, the First District explained, The rationale for permitting testimony relating to spontaneous exclamations is that `such utterances spring spontaneously and instinctively from the stress or pain or excitement caused by the act of violence and are made so soon after the act as to preclude the idea of deliberation, fabrication or design.' 314 So.2d at 251 (quoting 4 A.L.R.3d 149, 154). [13]