Opinion ID: 2972660
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Excited Utterance Exception

Text: As for Brittany’s statement to her parents, the Michigan Court of Appeals provided a reasonable analysis for its conclusion that it qualified as an excited utterance. An excited utterance is a statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition. In order to fall within the excited utterance exception, a statement must meet the following criteria: (1) it must arise out of a startling occasion; (2) it must be made before there has been time to contrive and misrepresent; and (3) it must relate to the circumstances of the startling occasion. In this case, complainant was sexually assaulted, and this is a startling event. Complainant made her statements within hours of the attack. Moreover, the evidence showed that the complaintant [sic] was under the sway of excitement precipitated by the assault. Thus, complainant’s statements were also admissible as excited utterances. The Michigan version of this exception is, again, very similar to the Federal one. See Fed. R. Evid. 803(2). While we agree with the Michigan court’s conclusion that Brittany’s statements to her parents were properly admitted as excited utterances, we also find, in the alternative, that the 6 In trying to demonstrate a lack of reliability, Brandt also points out that Brittany was found by the trial judge to be not competent to testify. Citing the Michigan statute on competency, he attempts to equate this finding to an inherent lack of trustworthiness in anything Brittany might have said. But during the post-conviction hearing on the motion for a new trial, Judge Moore clarified the basis for his original incompetency ruling. “I might come to the conclusion that that child does not have sufficient recall of those circumstances that time ago to testify. So, therefore, she’s incompetent but that would not have meant that she didn’t have sufficient recall the day it happened.” J.A. at 167a. -10- No. 04-1449 Brandt v. Curtis admissibility of Dr. Hartwig’s testimony regarding the identity of the assailant makes admission of the parents’ statements merely duplicative and, at most, harmless error. See Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 432 (1972) (“Thus, unless there is a reasonable possibility that the improperly admitted evidence contributed to the conviction, reversal is not required. In this case we conclude that the ‘minds of an average jury’ would not have found the State’s case significantly less persuasive had the testimony as to [co-defendant’s] admission been excluded. The admission into evidence of these statements, therefore, was at most harmless error.”). The admissibility of Brittany’s statements under these two “firmly rooted” hearsay exceptions causes a domino effect, with the result that all variations of Brandt’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim must fail. First, under the Michigan rules of evidence, the statements were admissible, and Brandt was therefore not prejudiced by his counsel’s failure to object. Second, under the Confrontation Clause jurisprudence as it existed at the time, the admission of any statement that fell within a “firmly rooted” exception was, by definition, not a violation of the Confrontation Clause, meaning that a failure to object on constitutional grounds did not prejudice Brandt. In Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805 (1990), on which Brandt relies heavily in his argument, the Supreme Court was faced with a state ruling that a physician’s hearsay testimony, regarding a child abuse victim’s statements, fell within the state’s residual hearsay exception. Since that exception was not “firmly rooted,” the Court, following Ohio v. Roberts, engaged in a more exacting analysis of the statements to determine their trustworthiness. The current situation involves “firmly rooted” exceptions and is therefore clearly distinguishable from Wright. -11- No. 04-1449 Brandt v. Curtis Finally, because Brittany’s identifying statements were admissible, trial counsel’s decision to introduce additional hearsay statements by Officer Bennett was a reasonable strategic decision designed to impeach prosecution witnesses and mitigate the damage done by the original hearsay identifications by showing that Brittany had been coached. Defense counsel pointed out that, in her statements to Officer Bennett, Brittany did not mention anal penetration and she used the “sophisticated” biological term vagina. These efforts at mitigation were reasonable and therefore did not violate the Strickland standard. II. Judicial Bias and Judicial Misconduct Claim Brandt also claims that he was denied his right to a fair trial by several of Judge Moore’s preliminary comments to the jury, which allegedly indicated bias in favor of the prosecution, and by the judge’s numerous interruptions and “scolding” of defense counsel during his questioning of witnesses. The Supreme Court’s standard for claims of judicial misconduct, which are grounded in the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, is found in Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540 (1994). In that case, the Court announced an exacting standard. [O]pinions formed by the judge on the basis of facts introduced or events occurring in the course of the current proceedings, or of prior proceedings, do not constitute a basis for a bias or partiality motion unless they display a deep-seated favoritism or antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible. Thus, judicial remarks during the course of a trial that are critical or disapproving of, or even hostile to, counsel, the parties, or their cases, ordinarily do not support a bias or partiality challenge. They may do so if they reveal an opinion that derives from an extrajudicial source; and they will do so if they reveal such a high degree of favoritism or antagonism as to make fair judgment impossible. Liteky, 510 U.S. at 555. -12- No. 04-1449 Brandt v. Curtis In this case, the judge’s pre-trial comments to the jury were, while sometimes imprecise, clearly not prejudicial. Taken in isolation, several statements do appear problematic, but when read in context it is clear that no serious errors were made. For example, Brandt points to the following statement by the judge. You’re looking at [the defendant] and he is charged with penetrating - I don’t know whether he - what he penetrated her with, it isn’t necessarily his penis, but it might be his penis, I don’t know. But I’ll leave that to the proofs, I’ll leave that to the prosecution, because the law doesn’t require that penetration be about a penis. It simply means that the person was penetrated for sexual purposes or gratification. J.A. at 59a. This statement is troubling because it implied that the defendant did, in fact, penetrate the victim with something. But again, the surrounding statements demonstrate that the judge was speaking hypothetically and that he expected the jury to presume innocence until proven guilty by the prosecution. In explaining the roles of the various parties, Judge Moore also described himself, along with all the people in the room and in the state, as the “clients” of the prosecutor. Brandt frames this as an expression of bias in favor of the prosecutor. Finally, in