Court Opinion

ID: 9774090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:08:29.962435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:01.863767
License: Public Domain

Steele Hays, Justice, concurring in part, dissenting in part. I share Judge Brown’s views, with which I join. I would add that I am unable to agree with the majority in reversing the judgment of conviction for rape. I believe it is a mistake to require evidence that the victim remained in an agitated, excited state between the offending conduct and the excited utterance. That was not the rationale in Smith v. State, 303 Ark. 524, 798 S.W.2d 94 (1990). Nor does the majority opinion cite supporting authority for its position. There was testimony that on Thursday the victim “burst” into the office of Ms. Roth and began telling the “rest of the story.” Ms. Roth described the victim as “upset, speaking loudly, as she has a tendency to do when she is upset.” Given the circumstances as a whole: the victim’s confinement to an institutional setting without parental accessibility, the relationship between the victim and the appellant, and the obvious improbability that a seriously retarded victim would manufacture an. accusation from the whole cloth, I disagree that it was error to permit the introduction of this evidence. The majority’s disparate treatment of the two utterances produces an anomaly — the victim’s statements on Monday to the effect that certain sexual offenses were inflicted on her by the appellant are held to be reliable, yet her staements three days later, also emanating from an agitated state of mind, of additional sexual offenses by the same individual are held to be unreliable only because of an interval of time. In State v. Padilla, 110 Wis.2d 414, 329 N.W.2d 263 (Ct. of App. 1982), a ten-year-old girl’s statements to her mother three days after the incident were admitted as an excited utterance. The rationale of that decision is relevant to this case: A broad and liberal interpretation is given to what constiutes an excited utterance when applied to young children. Love v. State, 64 Wis.2d 432, 219 N.W.2d 294 (1974); Betrang v. State, 50 Wis.2d 702, 184 N.W.2d 867 (1971); Bridges v. State, 247 Wis. 350, 19 N.W.2d 529, reh’g denied, 247 Wis. 350, 19 N.W.2d 862 (1945). In this special circumstance, the court has held that stress is present even some time after the triggering event. This ascertainment of prolonged stress is born of three observations. First, a child is apt to repress the incident. Bertrang, 50 Wis.2d at 707-08, 184 N.W.2d at 870. Second, it is often unlikely that a child will report this kind of highly stressful incident to anyone but the mother. Cf. Bridges v. State, 247 Wis. 350, 19 N.W.2d 529 (1945). Third, the characteristics of young children work to produce declarations “free of conscious fabrication” for a longer period after the incident than with adults. It is unlikely a young child will review the incident and calculate the effect of the statement. See United States v. Nick, 604 F.2d 1199, 1204 (1979). I would affirm the judgment of conviction.