Opinion ID: 2081827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The hearsay exception for excited utterances.

Text: In Nicholson v. United States, 368 A.2d 561, 564 (D.C.1977), the court stated that the [e]lements necessary to justify the exception to the hearsay rule include (1) the presence of a serious occurrence which causes a state of nervous excitement or physical shock in the declarant, (2) a declaration made within a reasonably short period of time after the occurrence so as to assure that the declarant has not reflected upon his statement or premeditated or constructed it, and (3) the presence of circumstances, which in their totality suggest spontaneity and sincerity of the remark. See generally MCCORMICK, EVIDENCE § 297 (2d ed. 1972). (Emphasis added.) The ultimate question. . . is whether the statement, as reported at trial, was a spontaneous reaction to the exciting event[,] rather than the result of reflective thought. Lyons v. United States, 622 A.2d 34, 47 (D.C.1993) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted), vacated on other grounds, 650 A.2d 183 (D.C.1994) (en banc). In this case, the appellants argue principally that because, in his statements to Ms. Sudler, Holmes claimed not to know who the kidnappers were, and because he subsequently testified in the prosecution case at trial that the kidnappers were the two appellants, then under the prosecution's own theory, Holmes must have both reflected and lied in the account that he gave to Ms. Sudler. The fact that the complainant/declarant misrepresented a fact to the police [14] during the 911 call was relevant to a determination of whether it was a spontaneous utterance. It bears upon whether the declarant's statement resulted from conscious reflection or the spontaneous reaction to the startling event. [ Raphael ] Smith v. United States, 666 A.2d 1216, 1225 (D.C.1995) (citations omitted). The court in [ Raphael ] Smith found it unnecessary to decide whether evidence that the declarant fabricated parts of his statement conclusively established as a matter of law that the statement was not an excited utterance. Nevertheless, fabrication presupposes reflection rather than spontaneity and falsity rather than truthfulness. An excited utterance is admitted on the theory that its spontaneity assures its veracity, and fabrication obviously tends to undermine the applicability of that theory. Indeed, the government does not argue to the contrary.