Opinion ID: 1737864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: did the trial court err by refusing to admit into evidence the official report of the deceased officer hickman as a business record of the defendant city of jackson?

Text: At trial, Copeland attempted to introduce into evidence the police report filed by Officer Billy Hickman at the scene of the accident. The City objected, and after extensive testimony concerning the admissibility of the report, the trial court sustained the objection to the introduction of the report. Copeland now contends on appeal that it was error for the trial court to refuse to allow into evidence Officer Hickman's report. This Court agrees with the appellant. As one of the exceptions to hearsay, Rule 803(6) of the Rules of Evidence reads as follows: Records of regularly conducted activity. A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions or diagnosis, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, unless the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. The term business as used in this paragraph includes business, institution, association, profession, occupation, and calling of every kind, whether or not conducted for profit. The comments to Rule 803(6) are also helpful for analyzing the admissibility of police reports: However, the source of the material must be an informant with knowledge who is acting in the course of the regularly conducted activity. This is exemplified by the leading case of Johnson v. Lutz, 253 New York 124, 170 N.E. 517 (1930), which is still the applicable law today under the rule. That case held that a police report which contained information obtained from a bystander was inadmissible; the officer qualified as one acting in the regular course of a business, but the informant did not. (Emphasis added). Therefore, police reports prepared during the investigation of an accident should be admissible into evidence. On a few occasions, this Court has addressed this issue. In Gandy v. State, 355 So.2d 1096 (Miss. 1978), the Court held that admitting into evidence a sketch drawn by a highway patrolman of the scene of an accident was improper, because to do so invaded the province of the jury. Id. at 1099-1100. However, those facts are distinguishable from those present in this case. In this case, the report in question was prepared at the time of the accident in accordance with the rules established by the police department of the City of Jackson. This Court has recently addressed the issue of the admissibility of documents under Rule 803(6) in Watson v. State, 521 So.2d 1290 (Miss. 1988). The Court held in that case that documents which were prepared as part of normal banking procedure were admissible into evidence. Id. at 1295. In another recent case, the Court suggested by way of dicta that law enforcement reports should be allowed into evidence. In Minnick v. State, 551 So.2d 77 (1988) (petition for rehearing pending), slip opinion at 88-89, the Court held as a general principle that reports prepared by law enforcement officials in the regular course of their activities should be admissible into evidence. In the case at bar, the Chief of Police for the City of Jackson testified at length that the report filed by Officer Hickman in this case was prepared in the regular course of his duties as a police officer. Although the report in question was allowed into evidence for identification purposes, it was never admitted into evidence for the jury to view. It is the opinion of this Court that it was error for the trial court to not allow this report into evidence. However, it was harmless error in view of the additur given and does not require a new trial. In holding such report admissible we should not be understood as holding all the contents of the report were necessarily admissible. For example, there may be notations in such a report which are recitations of statements of others, and would be inadmissible even though the officer were present in court testifying. The report is simply a substitute for the officer appearing in person and testifying.