Court Opinion

ID: 9757119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:19:20.345321+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:35.077893
License: Public Domain

SPAETH, Judge,
concurring:
I do not read the record quite as Judge CERCONE does. As Judge HOFFMAN notes at p. 305 n. 3, it is unclear what records were in evidence, and what they contained.1 However, for purposes of discussion I am willing to accept Judge CERCONE’s statement of the record. On that basis, I agree with Judge CERCONE that the statements in question were admissible as within the business records exception to the rule against hearsay evidence; but I agree with Judge HOFFMAN that the admission of the records was in violation of appellant’s right to confront the witnesses against him.
1
A business record may contain two sorts of entry. The first sort of entry is where the person making the entry has personal knowledge of the information contained in the entry. A common example is an entry in a hospital record by a nurse, recording when she took the patient’s tempera*310ture, and what the temperature was. The second sort of entry is where the person making the entry does not have personal knowledge of the information contained in the entry but is only recording what another person has said. A common example is where a police officer makes an entry in an accident report that he spoke to a person on the scene who said that he was the driver of the 1974 Oldsmobile, which the officer saw smashed against the telephone pole. The officer has personal knowledge of what the person he spoke to said, and he enters what the person said, but the officer does not have personal knowledge of whether the information thus given him is accurate.
The present case involves the second of these two sorts of entry: The treating physician had personal knowledge of what appellant said, and he entered what appellant said; but he did not have personal knowledge of whether in fact appellant had been teaching another patient, how to inject morphine.
The Uniform Business Records as Evidence Act, Act of May 4, 1939, P.L. 42, No. 35, § 2, 28 P.S. § 91b, does not distinguish between an entry recording personal knowledge of the fact entered and an entry limited to recording personal knowledge that a certain statement was made. The Act does provide that if an entry satisfies the other requirements of the Act, the court shall decide whether “the sources of information, method and time of preparation were such as to justify its admission.” This seems to imply that a court might in a given case insist that to be admissible the entry must record personal knowledge. The boundaries of this implication, however, are indistinct, and the cases are by no means uniform in defining them. See, e. g., 5 Wigmore, Evidence § 1530 (Chadbourn ed. 1974); McCormick, Evidence § 310 (Cleary ed. 1972).
McCormick suggests, supra, that “probably the approach that most courts . . . take” is to recognize that the second sort of entry presents a problem of double hearsay. If this approach is taken, whether the entry is admissible depends upon whether both of the hearsay problems can be *311solved. In other words: There are two out-of-court declar-ants. Declarant No. 1 is the person who made the entry, recording what Declarant No. 2 said. Two questions must be asked, one regarding Declarant No. l’s statement, the second, regarding Declarant No. 2’s.
The first question will be whether the entry was made by Declarant No. 1 in the regular course of business, or stated more fully, whether the entry is “of an act, condition or event”, whether “it was made in the regular course of business at or near the time of the act, condition or event”, and whether “the custodian or other qualified witness testifies to its identity and the mode of preparation.” 28 P.S. § 91b. If these conditions are met, the entry may be admitted as proof of what Declarant No. 1 knew, that is, as proof of the fact that Declarant No. 2 made such—and— such a statement, as recorded in the entry.
The second question will then be whether Declarant No. 2’s statement is admissible. Several answers to this question are possible.
First, Declarant No. 2’s statement may be admissible because no hearsay problem may be presented. This will be so if the issue is not whether the information contained in the statement is true but only whether the statement was made.
Second, if Declarant No. 2’s statement is being offered for its truth, it is hearsay, but it may nevertheless be admissible because it falls within an exception to the hearsay rule. One available exception may be the business records exception. This will be so if in making the statement Declarant No. 2 was himself acting as part of the business organization and was under a duty to make the statement. Suppose, for example, that a resident physician (Declarant No. 1) makes an entry recording a statement by a nurse (Declarant No. 2) that the patient had a sleepless night. The nurse was under a duty to make this statement to the physician, and the statement is therefore admissible as a business entry. Even if Declarant No. 2’s statement is not within the business records exception, it may be within some other exception to *312the hearsay rule. Consider the example suggested above, of the police officer investigating an accident. The police officer is Declarant No. 1; it may be held that he is under a duty to record what persons on the scene tell him. The person he talks to is Declarant No. 2. Declarant No. 2’s statement, recorded by the officer, that he was the driver of the 1974 Oldsmobile, may be admitted in an action against him as within the admissions exception to the hearsay rule.
Third, Declarant No. 2’s statement may be hearsay but not within an exception to the hearsay rule. It will then be inadmissible. With respect to this possibility, Wigmore would not be so strict; as I understand him, he would only require proof that Declarant No. 2 had personal knowledge of the facts contained in his statement to Declarant No. 1, without further requiring that Declarant No. 2’s statement be within an exception to the hearsay rule—at least, he would adopt this approach if Declarant No. 2 were unavailable. Wigmore, supra.
For purposes of deciding the present case it may be assumed that the proper approach is the comparatively strict, two step analysis believed by McCormick to represent the approach most courts would take. Perhaps in some other case we may decide not to be so strict, but we need not decide that now. Adopting this approach, I conclude that the entry of appellant’s statement to the treating physician was admissible. The treating physician is Declarant No. 1. While the point is not entirely clear, it seems to me that it was within the physician’s duty to record appellant’s statement to him. Perhaps not. Suppose, for example, that appellant had told the physician that his sister had used morphine. Here, however, appellant’s statement was relevant to the physician’s care of appellant, at least I think so. Granted that the statement was not, “I am using morphine.” However, the fact that appellant said he was teaching another patient how to inject morphine must have suggested to the physician that appellant himself was, or might be, addicted to morphine. Such information was relevant to the decision how to treat appellant and may therefore properly *313be viewed as recorded by the physician pursuant to his duty to record such relevant information. Appellant is Declarant No. 2. His statement is at least within the admissions exception to the hearsay rule. I agree with Judge CER-CONE that it is immaterial that the statement may be regarded as conclusory or in the nature of an expression of expert opinion by a lay witness.
2
The relationship between the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment and the rule against hearsay evidence is not clear. In Commonwealth v. Griffin, 243 Pa.Super. 115, 364 A.2d 477 (1976), I concluded that no clear, or authoritative, definition of the relationship was available but that we must proceed on a case by case basis, weighing, on the one hand, the importance to the defendant of cross-examination, and on the other, the availability of the declarant. 243 Pa.Super. at 119-23, 364 A.2d at 479-81 (concurring opinion).
Griffin was a difficult case (reflected by the 4-3 decision in this court). On the one hand, the importance to the defendant of cross-examination could hardly be overstated; the charge was rape and the declarant was the alleged victim. On the other hand, the declarant was unavailable and her statement was plainly within the reported testimony exception to the hearsay rule. Given these circumstances a majority of the court concluded that the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against him had not been violated. (PRICE, J. wrote the opinion for the court, JACOBS and VAN der VOORT, JJ., joining him; SPAETH, J., wrote a concurring opinion; WATKINS, P. J., wrote a dissenting opinion, CERCONE, J., joining him; HOFFMAN, J., wrote a dissenting opinion). The crucial facts, it seemed to me, were that the defendant at his first trial had the opportunity to cross-examine the victim, and that at his second trial the Commonwealth could not produce the victim.
*314The present case, I suggest, is considerably less difficult than Griffin. Here, the only evidence against appellant is hearsay evidence; appellant has never had the opportunity to cross-examine the declarant; and there is no showing that the declarant was unavailable. In these circumstances it is clear to me, as it is to Judge HOFFMAN, that the admission of the evidence represented a violation of appellant’s right of a confrontation.
Professor Kenneth Graham, author of a provocative article on the confrontation clause,2 appears to reach a conclusion similar to the one that Judge HOFFMAN and I have reached in this case. Graham suggests that in order to reach a satisfactory harmonization of the confrontation clause with hearsay doctrine it is necessary to shift the analysis from that of admissibility to that of sufficiency:
[W]hether or not a particular person is a “witness against” the defendant depends upon the use to which his statements are to be put. If his contribution makes him the “principal witness” for the prosecution, as the United States Supreme Court described the witnesses in Pointer [v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 402, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965)] and Barber [v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 722, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968)], he must be confronted, absent excuse or waiver. If, on the other hand, his “testimony” is not “crucial,” as the Court said the statement was not in Dutton [v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 87, 91 S.Ct. 210, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970)], the prosecution need not produce him at trial. Vague as they may be, these respective categories require an analysis of the evidence in the context of the case rather than in the abstract.
Though the Court has not done so, the concepts are capable of a more concrete delineation. Surely the fact that without the evidence supplied by the person at issue the prosecution could not have survived a motion for acquittal based on the constitutional insufficiency of the proof will be a significant factor in making him a “witness *315against” the defendant for purposes of the right of confrontation. Graham, supra note 1, at 129 (footnotes omitted).
Since juveniles are entitled to proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, In re Johnson, 445 Pa. 270, 284 A.2d 780 (1971), by Graham’s suggested test the evidence in this case would be found insufficient: without the disputed report in evidence, the Commonwealth “could not have survived a motion for acquittal based on the constitutional insufficiency of the proof.”
The correctness of the foregoing analysis is at least suggested by the decision of our Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Thomas, 443 Pa. 234, 279 A.2d 20 (1971). There, evidence of various out-of-court statements had been admitted as declarations of the deceased indicating an existing state of mind. The defendant argued that the admission violated his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. The Supreme Court held to the contrary, noting, first, that the declarations were within an exception to the hearsay rule, second, that the declarant was unavailable because dead, and finally, that the evidence was in no sense crucial to the defendant and in fact showed little more than that a relationship between him and the declarant existed—a fact established by other evidence. The important point for purposes of the present case is the Court’s clear indication that its ruling might have been different had the evidence been “crucial.” See especially 443 Pa. at 242, 279 A.2d at 24.3

. See the record at 15, 20, and 21.

. Graham, The Right of Confrontation and the Hearsay Rule: Sir Walter Raleigh Loses Another One, 8 Crim.L.Bull. 99 (1972).

. The dissent says, in note 2 of its opinion, that “appellant did not raise” his constitutional right of confrontation, noting that “appellant’s brief cites none of the cases” that I have cited. I cannot agree that appellant has not raised his constitutional right of confrontation. Appellant has argued:
Young Scott McNaughton was denied his constitutional right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses who drafted the report. The record reveals no other evidence was introduced to establish this delinquent act other than the medical report containing the admission of young Scott McNaughton. Under Pennsylvania law, a child cannot be declared a “Delinquent Child”, unless there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed a “Delinquent Act.”
*316Appellant’s Brief at 10.