Opinion ID: 2376167
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Excluding the Defendant's Proclaimed Reasons for Attempting Suicide

Text: In July 1996, the victim finally disclosed to her mother that defendant had been molesting her during 1993 and 1994. In response, the mother immediately decided to confront defendant. Enlisting her then-current boyfriend to accompany her, the mother proceeded to defendant's apartment and disclosed to him the reason for her early morning visit. After making various tearful admissions acknowledging his culpability for molesting the victim, defendant abruptly left the apartment. Later that same morning, the state police received a call to respond to the Veterans Cemetery in Exeter. There, a state trooper found a semiconscious defendant lying in the grass, bleeding from his slashed wrists. The defendant disclosed to the trooper that he had discarded the razor blade he had used to cut himself in a nearby trash receptacle. He also told the trooper that his truck was parked nearby, at his parents' gravesite. There, the state trooper found a note in defendant's handwriting that said: I am sorry for all the pain I caused. Please try to forgive me. Town Hall has a copy of my DD214. Hill Funeral Home has paperwork. Thank you. The note also contained a separate entry that said: Grace [defendant's sister], have them correct the spelling on Ma and Dad's grave stone. The state argued, without objection, that defendant's suicide attempt and note were evidence of his consciousness of guilt for having molested the victim. The defendant, on the other hand, took the position that he was merely despondent over the earlier deaths of both of his parents and his sister. In its case in chief, the state introduced the suicide note the trooper found without an objection from defendant. On cross-examination, however, when defendant's attorney attempted to find out what defendant said to the trooper at the grave site, [2] the prosecution objected on the basis of State v. Harnois, 638 A.2d 532 (R.I.1994) (holding that a defendant's self-serving statements to a police officer were inadmissible because the Rule 803(24) catchall hearsay exception cannot be used to prove material facts through affidavits or unsworn statements as a substitute for the defendant's own testimony). The defendant insists this was error. He asserts that these statements were admissible under Rule 803(3) as statements of the declarant's then-existing state of mind. As indicated earlier, however, to fall within the Rule 803(3) exception to the hearsay rule, the statement must be one showing the declarant's state of mind at the moment of the statement; but it does not include statements relating to the reasons why the declarant held that state of mind or what might have induced it. See Bustamante, 756 A.2d at 764. Rule 803(3) must be limited to those declarations of condition  `I'm scared'  and not belief  `I'm scared because Galkin threatened me.' Cohen, 631 F.2d at 1225. The statement defendant sought to elicit offered an explanation for defendant's state of mind and was therefore inadmissible. The defendant also suggests that his statement to the trooper fell into the catchall provision of Rule 803(24) because the conditions under which he made it gave it equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness. Rule 803(24) [3] provides an avenue for trial justices to admit hearsay statements notcovered by any of the exceptions listed in Rule 803 if they encounter new and unanticipated situations that demonstrate the same degree of trustworthiness as the specifically stated hearsay exceptions. See Advisory Committee's Notes to Rule 803, Exception ( 24 ): Other Exceptions. Furthermore, the rule requires the proponent of the exception to notify opposing counsel prior to trial for the statement to be admissible. Without even addressing the merits of the claim, defendant failed to show that he notified the state of his intention to use this exception to admit defendant's graveside declaration. But even assuming, arguendo, that defendant had notified the state as per Rule 803(24), the Harnois rule still barred the admission of this statement into evidence. See Harnois, 638 A.2d at 535. Moreover, defendant again failed to preserve this objection for appellate review because he did not alert the trial justice to the Rule 803(3) or (24) bases that he now urges as grounds for admitting the evidence. See Pineda, 712 A.2d at 861. Similarly, he made no offer of proof to the trial justice. See Medina, 747 A.2d at 450. Furthermore, any error here was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Pettiway, 657 A.2d at 164; Squillante, 622 A.2d at 479. The defendant himself testified, and his lawyer argued to the jury, that the loss of his parents and job stress led him to try to kill himself. The defendant emphatically denied that his suicide attempt had anything to do with his supposed consciousness of guilt because of the victim's accusations. His former wife also supported his contention that his suicidal condition was based upon the loss of his parents. In any event, what defendant may have said to the state trooper at the cemetery would not have resolved the question of whether he was suicidal because of his parents' deaths, because of the recent child-molestation accusations, because of his consciousness of guilt for having molested the victim, or, most likely of all, because of some combination of all these factors. Indeed, defendant has failed to cite any prejudice from excluding the evidence of what he may have said at the gravesite to the state trooper about his then-existing state of mind. We have held that the admission of evidence rests in the sound discretion of the trial justice and will not be disturbed absent a showing of an abuse of that discretion. Graff v. Motta, 748 A.2d 249, 252 (R.I.2000) (quoting New Hampshire Insurance Co. v. Rouselle, 732 A.2d 111, 113 (R.I.1999) (per curiam)). An aggrieved party challenging the ruling of the trial justice additionally bears the supplemental burden of establishing that the questioned evidence was material and that its admission had an impermissible prejudicial influence on the decision of the factfinder. Tinney v. Tinney, 770 A.2d 420, 434 (R.I.2001) (citing Graff, 748 A.2d at 252 and Caranci v. Howard, 708 A.2d 1321, 1325 (R.I.1998)). We are convinced that any error in excluding this evidence was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Excluding Evidence of What the Victim's Mother Told Denise Warburton About the Telephone Conversation She Had with Her Daughter On July 7, 1996 The defendant's former sister-in-law, Denise Warburton, was a bartender at Norman's Restaurant in East Greenwich on July 7, 1996, when the victim's mother, a regular patron, entered the establishment. After Warburton testified that the victim's mother received a phone call and that it was her daughter and she was crying, the prosecutor objected on hearsay grounds and the court sustained the objection. After the victim's mother ended the telephone call, Warburton asked her what was wrong with her daughter. The prosecutor again objected and the court again sustained the objection. The defendant's lawyer then cautioned Warburton: Don't tell me what she said. He then asked Warburton whether she knew that the victim's mother had had a phone conversation with her daughter, but he warned her to forget what she said to you. Under these circumstances, defendant cannot assert reversible error on the grounds that the court improperly sustained objections to questions that sought to elicit what the daughter said to her mother in the telephone call. The defendant failed to articulate any grounds whatsoever to justify admitting this evidence, and actually appeared to agree with the court's ruling by instructing the witness to forget what the victim's mother had told her about the telephone conversation with her daughter. See Medina, 747 A.2d at 450. For these reasons, any objections to these rulings were not properly preserved. Moreover, defendant made no offer of proof to show that he was attempting to elicit evidence showing the state of mind of either the victim or her mother relative to whatever they discussed that day in Norman's Restaurant and Bar during their telephone conversation. See id. `The purpose of an offerof proof is to enable this court to determine the materiality, relevance, and competence of the evidence.' State v. Cote, 691 A.2d 537, 541 (R.I.1997). Such offers `[shall] be reasonably specific, rather than general, should include a statement of the facts to which the witness would testify, should indicate the purpose and object of the proof offered, and should establish that the evidence sought to be admitted is admissible.' Id. at 542. Absent that offer of proof, or some indication on the record of what counsel believed he could unearth, [this Court is] unable to perceive any abuse of discretion in the trial justice's ruling. State v. Doctor, 690 A.2d 321, 328 (R.I.1997).