Opinion ID: 1157479
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Defendant's Statement of March 22

Text: The defendant asserts that the court erred in not excluding as irrelevant his statement to a police officer on March 22 that he was alone with the child when the March 19 injury occurred. We find no merit in this argument. [6] The child's injuries and the circumstances in which they occurred clearly were relevant issues in this case. Before the challenged testimony was admitted, the prosecution, without objection, already had presented evidence of statements made by the defendant and his wife on March 19 in which they described to emergency room attendants how the child sustained the head injury while they both were present in the vehicle and how the wife herself was injured at the same time. The defendant's March 22 statement was an admission on a relevant matter. See, e. g., People v. Forbes, 185 Colo. 410, 524 P.2d 1377 (1974). The inconsistent character of this statement, when compared with his prior statement of March 19, served only to enhance its use as substantive evidence. See generally Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(A), Advisory Committee's Note, 56 F.R.D. 297 (1972).