Opinion ID: 835638
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: hearsayfraser's statements of intent

Text: Defendant next argues that the trial court erred in allowing various witnesses to testify that Fraser had told them, on the evening of February 23, 1998, that she was going to Marty's to play on the computer. Defendant sought to exclude testimony about Fraser's statements in the two motions in limine already described, but the issue further crystallized when the state filed what it styled a Notice of OEC 804(3)(f) Evidence. In that filing, the state theorized that, although Fraser's statements were hearsay, they were admissible under OEC 803(3) as evidence of her state of mind and, particularly, of her intent to go to Marty's house later that night. Defendant argued that the statements were not admissible under the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule. The trial court rejected defendant's argument and ruled that the testimony was admissible, although it acknowledged that the evidence should be heavily circumscribed and indicated that the parties should work out the details. Before this court, defendant argues that, even if Fraser's hearsay statements theoretically were admissible to show her state of mind at the time that she made them, they could not lawfully be admitted for that purpose because Fraser's state of mind was not relevant to any issue in the case. Defendant suggests that the state's real purpose in introducing the statements and their only real relevance was to show defendant's state of mind and, ultimately, his future conduct. Defendant contends that, according to the Legislative Commentary to OEC 803(3), the statements should have been excluded. We disagree. The Legislative Commentary to OEC 803(3) shows that the legislature's intent, in adopting that rule, was to render statements of intent by a declarant admissible only to prove the declarant's future conduct, not the future conduct of another person. Laird C. Kirkpatrick, Oregon Evidence, Art VIII-77 (4d ed 2002). That commentary does not mean that a hearsay statement of intent is automatically inadmissible because the jury might use it as a basis for inferring the intentions and future actions of some person in addition to the declarant. It merely means that such statements are inadmissible for such a purpose and that, to the extent that they can serve no other purpose in the context of the case, they may be inadmissible altogether. In the present case, the trial court clearly recognized the foregoing distinction. It concluded that, even excluding any implication about defendant's intentions that might arise from Fraser's statements, her intention to go to Marty's (and the implication that she carried through with that plan) was relevant to the issue of where she was when she was murderedin other words, venue. Having concluded that the statements fell within the exception set out at OEC 803(3), for that limited purpose, the trial court left it to the parties to work out how to keep the testimony within those confines or otherwise to limit its effect. Defendant contends that, even if Fraser's statements were admissible for the limited purposes of establishing her state of mind and future conduct, allowing them to come in at all was unfairly prejudicial, in that jurors necessarily would draw inferences about defendant's state of mind and conduct. But defendant made no request for a limiting instruction warning the jury against drawing such inferencesa fact that we find to be dispositive. Had defendant made such a request, the trial court either would have allowed it (hence obviating any potential error) or would have denied it. Defendant is not entitled to profit from the fact that he never gave the trial court the opportunity to rule either way. Defendant also contends that, regardless of its admissibility under the evidence rules, admission of hearsay reports that Fraser was planning to go to Marty's violated his constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment and Article I, section 11, to confront all witnesses against him. Defendant largely relies on the United States Supreme Court's recent decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). Crawford overruled earlier federal case law holding that out-of-court statements of declarants who do not testify at trial may be admitted if the trial court finds adequate indicia of reliability. Crawford held, instead, that out-of-court statements that are testimonial in nature are absolutely inadmissible, unless the defendant has had an opportunity to test the reliability of those statements through cross-examination. Id., 541 U.S. at 68, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Crawford did not definitively explain what kind of statements fall within the testimonial category, but indicated that the category might include material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially. Id. at 51, 124 S.Ct. 1354. Defendant assertsas he mustthat Fraser's statements to various parties that she was going to Marty's would fall into that category. The state argues, on the other hand, that Fraser's statements were not testimonial; that, for confrontation clause purposes, testimonial statements are only those that are made under circumstances that would lead a witness to believe the statement was intended for use at a later trial, such as affidavits and statements made to the police. Although we are unsure at this juncture of the precise scope of the term testimonial as the Supreme Court used it in Crawford, we agree with the state that the concept does not include the statements made by an unsuspecting victim of a crime before that crime has even occurred. We note, in that regard, that the statements at issue are wholly unlike the ones that Crawford describes as testimonial, viz., affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially. Id. We conclude, in short, that admission of Fraser's statements does not create the Sixth Amendment issue that defendant asserts. [19]