Opinion ID: 1998700
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The hearsay exception for spontaneous exclamations or excited utterances.

Text: In the District of Columbia, the elements of the hearsay exception here at issue are: [5] (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). Nicholson, 368 A.2d at 564; accord, Alston v. United States, 462 A.2d 1122, 1126-27 (D.C.1983); Reyes-Contreras, 719 A.2d at 506; Bryant, 859 A.2d at 1106. The decisive factor in determining admission of declarations relating to a violent crime made by the victim shortly after its occurrence is that circumstances reasonably justify the conclusion that the remarks were not made under the impetus of reflection.  Nicholson, 368 A.2d at 564 (emphasis added; citations omitted). Stated another way, [t]he critical factor is that the declaration was made within a reasonably short period of time after the occurrence so as to assure that the declarant has not reflected upon [ her ] statement or premeditated or constructed it.  Smith v. United States, 666 A.2d 1216, 1223 (D.C.1995) (emphasis added; citations omitted). Thus, spontaneity and lack of opportunity for reflection constitute the key elements, and before admitting an out-of-court statement under this exception, the judge must be assured, i.e., fully confident, that these requirements have been satisfied. The government's position in this case appears to be that because the declarant was a victim of a serious crime, and because she was consequently upset, shaken, and afraid, her account, which was provided an hour after the crime and in response to police questioning, was necessarily admissible under the hearsay exception for spontaneous exclamations. We do not agree with this position, for it fails to take into account the critical requirement of spontaneity. Indeed, the government's position takes the exception well beyond its origins and the reasons for its existence. The hearsay rule is designed to protect litigants from judgments based on unreliable second-hand evidence which is not subject to cross-examination, and its proscriptions cannot be avoided by rote recitations that the declarant was upset or excited or afraid. [T]o the extent the hearsay exception for spontaneous declarations existed at all [in 1791], it required that the statements be made `immediately upon the hurt received, and before [the declarant] had time to devise or contrive any thing for her own advantage.' Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 58 n. 8, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004) (quoting Thompson v. Trevanion, Skin. 402, 90 Eng. Rep. 179 (K.B.1694)). Spontaneous utterances were traditionally admitted only if they were made in the transaction . . . or while it was pending. Packet Co. v. Clough, 20 Wall. 528, 87 U.S. 528, 542, 22 L.Ed. 406 (1874). The hearsay exception was thus intended to apply to situations in which the declarant was so excited by the precipitating event that he or she was still under the spell of its effect. United States v. Edmonds, 63 F.Supp. 968, 971 (D.D.C. 1946). [6] Although the psychological basis for the theory justifying the exception has not gone unchallenged, [7] it has become a part of the warp and woof of our law, and we do not challenge it here. Over the years, some of our cases have imported a measure of flexibility into the admissibility calculus of spontaneous exclamations and excited utterances, but the fundamentals of the doctrine have remained intact. In Alston, 462 A.2d at 1126, the court, quoting from a leading decision then forty-four years old, stated that: declarations, exclamations and remarks made by the victim of a crime after the time of its occurrence are sometimes admissible upon the theory that under certain external circumstances of physical shock, a stress of nervous excitement may be produced which stills the reflective faculties and removes their control, so that the utterance which then occurs is a spontaneous and sincere response to the actual sensations and perceptions already produced by the external shock. Since this utterance is made under the immediate and uncontrolled domination of the senses, and during the brief period when considerations of self-interest could not have been brought fully to bear by reasoned reflection, the utterance may be taken as particularly trustworthy. Beausoliel v. United States, 71 App. D.C. 111, 113, 107 F.2d 292, 294 (1939) (emphasis added; citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The court in Alston then carefully analyzed each of the three elements of a spontaneous or excited utterance as described in Nicholson. See p. 10, supra. With respect to the first requirementthat there be a serious occurrence which causes a state of nervous excitement or physical shock in the declarantthe court stated that evidence of mental disturbance or physical shock must be presented, but cautioned that [e]ven if such evidence is presented, if the reaction has ceased during peaceful hours between the event and the utterance, the statement cannot be admitted. 462 A.2d at 1127. The court then addressed the requirement that the declaration must have been 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. Id. (quoting Nicholson ). The court stated that [w]hile the time element is not controlling, it is of great significance.  Id. (emphasis added). [W]hen the utterance is made immediately. . . or a few minutes after the [disturbing] incident, the declarations can properly be accepted under this hearsay exception. Id. (citations omitted). Statements made one hour after the incident, on the other hand, are admitted when, and presumably only when, the age and condition of the declarant support spontaneity. Id. [8] In the present case, the government's evidence regarding the declarant's state of mind, consisted essentially of the commission of the March 27 armed robbery and Detective Thompson's four adjectives: upset, excited, shaken, and afraid. Obviously, a person who has just been robbed at gunpoint is unlikely to be in a placid frame of mind. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which the adjectives used by the detective would not describe any victim of an armed robbery. But this is hardly a case in which the out-of-court statement was made immediately upon the hurt received, Crawford, 541 U.S. at 58 n. 8, 124 S.Ct. 1354 (quoting Thompson, 90 Eng. Rep. 179), or in the transaction or while it was pending. Packet Co. v. Clough, 87 U.S. at 542, or so soon after the robbery that the victim had no opportunity to reflect. Nicholson, 368 A.2d at 564. There was no showing that the declarant remained under the spell of [the robbery's] effect, Edmonds, 63 F.Supp. at 971, or that her reflective faculties had been stilled, or her control over them removed. Beausoliel, 71 App. D.C. at 113, 107 F.2d at 294; Alston, 462 A.2d at 1126 (quoting Beausoliel ). There was no evidence that the declarant shrieked out her account, that she had lost her self-control, or that she was unable to think or reflect. Rather, shaken and upset as she undoubtedly was, she gave evidently responsive and rational answers to the detective's questions. We discern no basis in the record for finding, in the declarant's responses to the detective's inquiries, the spontaneity that remains the key to this hearsay exception. The authorities on which the government relies are distinguishable in dispositive respects. In United States v. Woodfolk, 656 A.2d 1145 (D.C.1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1183, 116 S.Ct. 1286, 134 L.Ed.2d 231 (1996), for example, the out-of-court declarant called 911 because her boyfriend, who had a gun, would not let her leave the house, and the declarant was afraid that he would hurt her. The tape of the call was in evidence, and the trial judge relied on the declarant's expressed fear, the [continued] presence of a gun in the house, and the sense of urgency (both in [the declarant's] tone of voice and in her request `please hurry,') id. at 1151, to conclude that a startling event occurred and that it was in a state of nervous shock following that event that [the declarant] made the 911 call. Id. In the present case, there was no danger from a firearm, or from any source, at the time the clerk was answering the detective's questions. Further, in this case, unlike in Woodfolk, the judge had no opportunity to hear the tone of the declarant's voice, and he could not and did not rest his decision on any such evidence. In Bryant, 859 A.2d at 1106, the out-of-court declarant, a kidnap victim who had been repeatedly raped by her captors, made a statement to the police immediately upon her rescue. At the time she made it, she was crying, shaking, and very distraught. These circumstances differ dramatically from the store clerk's interview by the police an hour after the armed robbery in this casea robbery in which the clerk had not been injured or harmed. In its brief, the government also describes Reyes-Contreras, 719 A.2d at 505, as affirming admission of utterance made thirty minutes after event and citing cases affirming admission of utterances after the passage of three hours and of two hours. But Reyes-Contreras is also distinguishable from the present case in critical respects, and the purported three-hour and two-hour cases are even more so. In Reyes-Contreras, the declarant, who was bruised, bleeding, crying, yelling, and visibly upset, waved down a police car and told the officer that he[ [9] ] hit me, he hit me. Id. In spite of the lapse of half an hour from the time of the assault, we held that her statement was properly admitted because the assault had obviously caused a state of nervous excitement or physical shock in her, and because the circumstances of the assault and her search for police directly after the assault suggested the spontaneity and sincerity of [the declarant's] remarks. Id. at 506 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The declarant in the present case was not bleeding or bruised, she was not crying, yelling, or waving her hands, and the delay was twice as long. The circumstances are therefore not at all comparable. The three-hour case to which the government refers is Price v. United States, 545 A.2d 1219 (D.C.1988). In reality, Price was not a three-hour case at all. As Judge Reilly explained in his opinion for the court, [a]ppellant . . . contends that the second condition for admissibility as an excited utterance was not satisfied as three hours had elapsed between the time of the shooting and the telephone call. During that interval the witness had returned home and gone to bed, and therefore, had time to reflect. Hence, appellant contends that whatever she said on the phone could not be viewed as a spontaneous revelation in the context of sudden shock. This argument overlooks the fact, however, that not until Miss Wilson received the call did she learn that her most recent lover had been severely injured by the gunfire. Although she was aware that the shots had shattered the windows of the car, she might well have thought that the ability of the occupant of the car to start his motor so promptly and to drive out of gun range indicated that he had escaped unscathed. In view of the romantic relationship between witness and victim, the discovery that the latter had been wounded and hospitalized might well have caused her to burst into tears and triggered the words exculpating herself and incriminating her other lover. In short, the record suggests that Miss Wilson's utterance responded to information she learned in the phone call, not to the shooting that had occurred earlier. Consequently, appellant's emphasis on her going to bed after the shooting, thus eliminating spontaneity, is beside the point. Id. at 1226 (emphasis added). Thus, the event that caused the shock to the declarant did not happen three hours before she made her out-of-court statement; rather, the statement was made during the very conversation in which she heard the shocking news. Given the court's reasoning as quoted above, the suggestion that Price supports admission of the clerk's statements to Detective Thompson in the present case is not at all persuasive. The two-hour case relied upon by the government likewise contains no appreciable resemblance to the present one. In Harris v. United States, 373 A.2d 590 (D.C.1977), the decedent, who had been shot, made an incriminating disclosure to the police in the hospital emergency room approximately two hours after the shooting. However, the circumstances were markedly different from those here. The trial judge found that during the time decedent was in the emergency room he was substantially and predominantly under the influence of the trauma which had been inflicted upon him, and . . . the declarations which he made at the time . . . do qualify as exceptions to the hearsay rule under spontaneous declarations. Id. at 593. This court affirmed, noting that the decedent's medical condition was critical when he talked to the officer. He was suffering from several gun shot wounds, at least one of which was in his chest and, when he was admitted to the hospital, his blood pressure was zero. There was testimony that he was in a great deal of pain, and that it was an effort for him to talk. Id. It was under these extraordinary circumstances that we held that the deceased declarant's out-of-court statements were receivable in evidence under the hearsay exception for spontaneous exclamations, even though the statements were made two hours after the shooting. No such exceptional circumstances are present in this case. In sum, none of the authorities relied upon by the government bears in any significant way upon the record presently before us. Although there is no doubt that the declarant in this case was subjected to a frightening armed robbery an hour before she was interviewed, the four adjectives used by Detective Thompson in his description of the clerk's state of mind do not establish, or even significantly address, the element of spontaneity on which the theory of this hearsay exception is based. We recognize that, although the trial judge did not have the opportunity to observe or to hear the declarant, our standard of review is deferential. On this record, however, we conclude that the admission of Detective Thompson's testimony regarding the declarant's out-of-court statements cannot be sustained, for there was no finding of spontaneity and no evidence to support such a finding.