Opinion ID: 2599649
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Any Error the Trial Court May Have Made in Admitting Lodge's Statement Is Harmless.

Text: At the scene of the accident, Sgt. Andre conducted interviews of the witnesses, including Lodge. Sgt. Andre spoke to Lodge for approximately two or three minutes. Lodge was not called as a witness at the trial, apparently because of unavailability. Instead, Sgt. Andre testified about what he heard Lodge say. According to Sgt. Andre, Lodge told him that, as the cabdriver began turning into the driveway of Mack's Sport Shop next to McDonald's Restaurant, Lodge saw a child and said hey, man, watch it, and Dobos hit Ingersoll two or three seconds later. Lodge opined to Andre that Dobos just wasn't paying attention and that he had hit the child almost dead center. Dobos challenged as inadmissible hearsay Sgt. Andre's testimony recounting his interview with Lodge. The testimony was admitted over Dobos's objection under the present sense impression exception. According to Alaska Rule of Evidence 801(c), hearsay is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. The parties do not dispute that Lodge's statement is hearsay. They only dispute whether the evidence is nonetheless admissible under a hearsay exception. Rule 803(1) sets out the present sense impression exception to the hearsay rule: a statement describing or explaining an event or condition made while the declarant was perceiving the event or condition or immediately thereafter is not excluded by the hearsay rule. Thus, to fall within the present sense impression exception, a statement must meet three requirements: it must describe or explain the event or condition; it must be made during or immediately after the event; and it must be based on the perception of the declarant. The burden is on the proponent of the evidence to establish the foundational facts necessary for the hearsay exception. [7] Lodge's statement plainly is descriptive and was based on his personal perception of the events surrounding the accident. Therefore the only serious question as to whether the present sense impression exception applies is whether the statement was sufficiently contemporaneous to meet the immediately thereafter standard of the rule. Because of the substantial uncertainty in the record concerning when the statement was taken by Sgt. Andre, it is unclear whether the contemporaneity foundation for admission of the statement was established. But we need not resolve this question, because we hold that even if admission of the statement was erroneous, it was harmless error. Under the harmless error test [t]he members of this court must necessarily put themselves, as nearly as possible, in the position of the jury in order to determine whether, as reasonable [people], the error committed probably affected their verdict. [8] The burden is on Dobos to show prejudice. [9] Absent Lodge's statement, the evidence of Dobos's negligence consists of Ingersoll's testimony that she was walking quickly on the sidewalk when she was hit, Dobos's testimony that he was focused on angling to the left rather than looking to the right, the testimony that the area was well-lit, and Larionoff's testimony that Dobos did not back his car off of Ingersoll for over a minute. Based on this testimony, it seems likely that the jury would have found Dobos negligent, both for his failure to look both ways before driving over the sidewalk and for his decision not to back the car off of Ingersoll sooner. Significant factors in determining whether an error was harmless or prejudicial may include how central the testimony was relative to the overall length of the trial and how the testimony was used at closing argument. [10] In this case, Sgt. Andre's repetition of Lodge's statement took up a short period of time over the three-day trial. Sgt. Andre does not appear to have been on the stand for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. The issue was also discussed with Dobos in testimony that lasted less than five minutes. Lodge's statement was alluded to in closing argument, when Ingersoll's counsel said [w]e heard about the passenger Dorman Lodge. He's able to see something. In light of the length of the closing argument, this reference to Lodge was exceedingly brief. [11] It is also quite vague. The Lodge testimony was a small segment of the plaintiff's case. Additionally, the fact that Lodge was intoxicated suggests that the jury would have accorded little weight to his testimony, making it even less likely that his statement affected the verdict. Because Lodge's statement played a very small role in the trial, and the other evidence was strong enough that the jury would probably have found Dobos to be negligent, we find that any error the trial court may have made in admitting this evidence is harmless.