Opinion ID: 2103388
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: the defendant's hearsay declaration of intent

Text: The defendant also contends that it was reversible error for the trial court to exclude Kerstein's testimony that the defendant had stated that he was going to shoot out the tires on Preze's automobile. This statement falls within the definition of hearsay  an out-of-court statement by the declarant offered to prove the truth of the matters asserted ( People v. Rogers (1980), 81 Ill.2d 571, 577)  and the trial court sustained the prosecutor's objection to it and struck the remarks from the record. The defendant, however, contends, among other theories, that this testimony should have been admitted under the statement of intent exception to the hearsay rule, and we do not dispute that contention. (See People v. Hampton (1969), 44 Ill.2d 41, 46 ( per curiam ); People v. Osborne (1917), 278 Ill. 104, 109; Quick v. Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance Co. (1969), 112 Ill. App.2d 314, 320; see also E. Cleary & M. Graham, Illinois Evidence (3d ed. 1979) sec. 803.4-.5; Fed. R. Evid. 803(3) (defining exception to hearsay rule as including [a] statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind    (such as intent, plan, motive, design   ).) The defendant's statement was admissible to prove his intent in the Preze attack and to prove that he acted in accordance with that intent. Nevertheless, the trial court's exclusion of the defendant's hearsay statement was harmless error. The hearsay statement was merely cumulative of other evidence presented by the parties in the trial which permitted the defendant to argue he had no intent to shoot Preze. In his closing argument defense counsel asked the jury to look at the hole in [Kathy Preze's] car and    see if that isn't more a shot fired from the back of her car rather than a shot fired as her car is forming a T with [the defendant's] and going away from him in the opposite direction   . And then as you look at that hole, that is down, not up, and not off to the right, you see what was fired at was the back of the car of Ms. Preze, not Ms. Preze. The hearsay statement would have added nothing to the evidence already in the record, especially considering that Kerstein's credibility had been attacked on the basis of several false statements that she had made about the shooting incidents. Because the evidence that was denied admission is purely cumulative, the exclusion is harmless error and does not require reversal and remand for a new trial. See People v. Kline (1982), 92 Ill.2d 490, 503-04; Wohlford v. People (1894), 148 Ill. 296, 300.