Opinion ID: 1494368
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Admission of Hearsay Statements by Bruce's Sister under the Excited Utterances Exception

Text: The second argument that Bruce raises on appeal concerns the trial court's admission in evidence of a hearsay statement by Towanda Bruce, the Defendant's sister. An officer testified at trial that, upon seeing still photographs taken by the bank surveillance system, Towanda  who was unaware that her brother was a suspect in the robbery  began to cry and stated that the robber in the photographs looks like her brother. [21] The police conducted a second, taped interviewed with Towanda fifteen minutes later during which she repeated that remark. The trial court admitted both the officer's testimony and Towanda's taped statement under the hearsay exception for excited utterances [22] or, alternatively, under the present sense impression exception. [23] We review the Superior Court's decision to admit or exclude evidence for an abuse of discretion. [24] To establish the admissibility of an excited utterance under D.R.E. 803(2), the proponent must show that: (1) the excitement of the declarant was triggered by a startling event; (2) the proffered statement was made while the excitement of the event was continuing; and (3) the statement was related to the event. [25] There is no requirement that the statement be made within a specific time after the triggering event. Instead, Rule 803(2) requires the declarant to be under the `stress of excitement' caused by the startling event or condition at the time of the statement's making. [26] In his Reply Brief, Bruce concedes that Towanda's initial reaction to the photograph fits within the exception for excited utterances. According to the officer's testimony, Towanda immediately began to cry when confronted with the surveillance photograph. Since her statement that the robber looks like her brother was a spontaneous reaction triggered by viewing the photograph, the officer's testimony describing Towanda's reaction is admissible under D.R.E. 803(2). Although Towanda's later taped statement was in some respects a reenactment of her first statement, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the taped statement as an excited utterance. [27] The trial court found that Towanda made the taped statement while she was still under the influence of the startling event of having been presented with the photograph of [her] brother. Although the taped statement was made fifteen minutes after Towanda first saw the photograph, the trial court could properly find that the statement was nevertheless an excited utterance made under the `stress of excitement.' [28] Moreover, because Towanda's statements fall within the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule, their admission does not violate Bruce's confrontation rights. It is well established that the hearsay exceptions for spontaneous statements, which include the exceptions for present sense impressions and excited utterances, are firmly rooted under the confrontation provisions of the Delaware and federal constitutions. [29] Statements that fall within a firmly rooted hearsay exception satisfy the Confrontation Clause and do not require an individualized determination that the statements contain particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. [30] Even assuming that the trial court erred in admitting Towanda's taped statement under an exception to the hearsay rule, and thus presumptively violated Bruce's Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him, we conclude that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt [31] because the taped statement was entirely cumulative of the officer's admissible testimony describing Towanda's initial reaction to the surveillance photograph.