Opinion ID: 2376167
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Exclusion of Statements Made By Defendant to His Ex-wife

Text: Relying again upon Rule 803(3) as the basis for the admission of evidence he sought to elicit from his former wife, defendant argues that the trial justice committed reversible error in frustrating his attempts to show that on February 14, 1996  months before the victim's mother eventually confronted him in July with charges of child molestation  he already had planned for his own burial. But defendant's former wife testified that he was devastated by the deaths of his parents and sister in less than a year; that he was withdrawn, very depressed, and overwhelmed with grief. She also testified that he spoke about suicide in her presence, although he had never actually attempted it until July 8, 1996 (after the victim's mother confronted him about sexually abusing her daughter). Most importantly, for purposes of assessing this specification of error, defendant's former wife told the jury that she had a conversation with her former husband on February 14, 1996, that led her to believe that he viewed his own death as imminent. Thus, we conclude that any error on this score was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In any event, the grounds for defendant's objections to the trial justice's evidentiary rulings during his former wife's testimony were raised for the first time on appeal. Because defendant never articulated his theory of admissibility to the trial justice, he has failed to preserve it for appeal. See Pineda, 712 A.2d at 861. Further, the evidence was cumulative and, therefore, any exclusion was harmless error, at best. See Squillante, 622 A.2d at 479.