Court Opinion

ID: 9746435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:15:49.652776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:37:49.698686
License: Public Domain

HUDOCK, J.,
Dissenting.
¶ 1 Respectfully, I dissent. The majority maintains that the victim’s statement did not qualify as an excited utterance because of the separation in time and space between it and the exciting event, and also because it was made in response to police questioning. This was an ongoing incident in which Appellant held a sword to the victim’s neck, threatened to cut her throat, dragged her by the hair, and held her prisoner in her own home against her will overnight. On appeal, Appellant concedes that the event in question did not end until the victim escaped from the house. Appellant’s Brief at 12.
¶ 2 The majority cites the fact that the victim’s statement was made eight to ten blocks from the scene of the event. However, this was only because the victim fled in order to escape from her husband. She traveled the entire distance while running. She then immediately called the police. When a police officer arrived, she remained upset and angry. Her voice and behavior were distraught and erratic. Her statement to the officer was made while she was still visibly experiencing the emotion of the events less than half an hour after her escape from this terrifying episode. The fact that a statement was not made immediately after a startling event is not dispositive of its admissibility as an excited utterance. Commonwealth v. Carpenter, 555 Pa. 434, 457-58, 725 A.2d 154, 165-66 (1999). The crucial question, regardless of time lapse, is whether, at the time the statement is made, the nervous excitement continues to dominate while the reflective process remains in abeyance. Commonwealth v. Carmody, 799 A.2d 143, 147 (Pa.Super.2002). As this Court has stated, while there is no fixed time limit within which declarations must be made to be properly considered excited utterances, “we are satisfied that a thirty minute period is not so extreme as to preclude admission of ... declarations under the excited utterance exception.” Commonwealth v. Hess, 270 Pa.Super. 501, 411 A.2d 830, 834 (1979). In Commonwealth v. Sanford, 397 Pa.Super. 581, 580 A.2d 784 (1990), we held that a statement, in response to an inquiry made in the evening about an event that most likely occurred in the morning and in a separate residence, qualified as an excited utterance. Responses to questions are not per se excluded from consideration as excited utterances, even though one might conclude that such responses require the kind of reflection that precludes statements from qualifying as excited utterances. Sanford, 580 A.2d at 789. The victim’s statement was not the result of any detailed question or prolonged interrogation. According to the responding police officer, the victim immediately “blurted out” her story while still in a state of agitation and excitement in response to his inquiry about what was wrong. In Commonwealth v. Barnyak, 432 Pa.Super. 483, 639 A.2d 40, 44 (1994), we held that excited utterances by a shooting victim and her son were admissible, even though they were made a half hour after the shooting and in response to police questioning, because, as was the situation with the victim in the present case, the declarants were still visibly experiencing the emotion of the event.
*1261¶ 3 As the majority notes, this Court has previously held that “[wjhere there is no independent evidence that a startling event had occurred, an alleged excited utterance cannot be admitted as an exception to the hearsay rule.” Commonwealth v. Barnes, 310 Pa.Super. 480, 456 A.2d 1037, 1040 (1983). In the present case, the police officer observed the victim’s agitated emotional state at the location to which she immediately fled upon escaping. The victim went with him to the scene of the crime, where they found Appellant. The officer recovered the sword used by Appellant to threaten the victim, located in the place that the victim had described. These circumstances all corroborated the victim’s story.
¶ 4 For these reasons, I would conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by determining that the victim’s statement was admissible as an excited utterance.