Court Opinion

ID: 9523580
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:44:22.010886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:33.496112
License: Public Domain

BAKER, Judge,
concurring in result.
I agree with the decision to affirm New-bill’s conviction for rape, but I part ways with the majority’s determination that the 911 call qualified an excited utterance in these circumstances. Even so, the majority acknowledges that H.R. testified at Newbill’s trial and verified her own voice on the 911 tape. Op. at 390. Moreover, H.R. was subject to cross-examination, and she did not tell the police dispatcher in the 911 call anything that she did not also tell the jury. Therefore, even though it may have been error to have admitted the 911 tape under the under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule, the error was harmless because the statements that H.R. made to the police dispatcher were cumulative of her trial testimony. See Buchanan v. State, 767 N.E.2d 967, 970 (Ind.2002) (holding that improperly admitted evidence is harmless error if the erroneously admitted evidence was cumulative of other evidence that was properly admit*399ted). For these reasons, I concur in result.