Court Opinion

ID: 9856048
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:37:01.311474+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:25:57.047797
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice
(dissenting).
I believe the trial court should have sustained defendant’s hearsay objection to Robert Leonard’s testimony of John Fishel’s warning.
An out-of-court utterance is hearsay if it contains an assertion of fact and is offered to prove the truth of that assertion. The court holds Fishel’s warning “Stay away from Sharen” does not contain an assertion of fact. I believe that Fishel’s words mean “Sharen intends you harm.” This is not an “implied assertion” case like the famous one of Wright v. Doe d. Tatham, 5 Clark & Finnelly 670. There the court excluded as hearsay certain letters written to a decedent that were offered as evidence from which decedent’s competency could be inferred. No need exists in the instant case to draw any inference from the words uttered to the fact sought to be proven. Fish-el’s words themselves are probative of Sharen Leonard’s intent.
Rule 801 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, cited by the court in its opinion today, says that a statement is an oral or written assertion if it is intended as an assertion. There can be little doubt that Fishel intended to assert “Sharen means you harm.” Otherwise why would Fishel say “Stay away from Sharen”? Clearly the prosecutor purposed to show by the assertion that Sharen intended to harm Leonard. The additional minutes of testimony provided by the county attorney said that Robert Leonard would testify Fishel told him “if he saw Sharen to be careful” and also that one of Leonard’s co-workers at the post office would testify Fishel told Leonard “to be careful of Sharen Leonard.”
For the purpose of applying the hearsay rule, a matter may be “asserted” by words not in the form of an assertion. Courts should be concerned not with the form of the statement, but with its substance. Only thus can the important purpose of the hearsay rule be achieved. The present utterance was in the imperative rather than assertive form. When evidence of such an utterance is offered and the utterance is relevant because an assertion of fact is its meaning, the policy underlying the hearsay rule calls for application of that rule.
The admission of Fishel’s warning, indicating as it did defendant’s intention to harm Leonard, was highly prejudicial. The only real issue in the trial was defendant’s intent. No question existed but what defendant fired the shot that struck Leonard but defendant said she only intended to frighten him. She claimed she at no time intended to hurt him. The evidence of Fishel’s warning thus went to the heart of the case.
The court states that even assuming the utterance meant defendant intended to hurt Leonard, evidence of the statement was admissible because the statement was relevant without regard to its truth or falsity — the evidence of Fishel’s statement was “reasonably necessary to complete the whole story of the crime charged.” Yet the utterance explained no one’s actions or motives except defendant’s intent. Robert Leonard testified that at the time Fishel’s warning “didn’t mean anything to me.” The warning had no effect whatsoever upon Leonard’s subsequent acts. Anyway, Leonard’s knowledge or intent was not an element of the crime. The case is not like the personal injury action in which the defendant contends the plaintiff was contrib-utorily negligent because he disregarded an advance warning about a dangerous condi*894tion. Chicago G. W. Ry. v. Price, ,97 P. 423 (8 Cir.) (conductor warned not to approach gasoline with lantern); Mueller v. Washington Water Power Co., 56 Wash. 556, 106 P. 476 (plaintiff warned not to alight while car moving).
The court cites State v. Watson, 242 N.W.2d 702 (Iowa). There the out-of-court statements were made by the victim of an attempted rape immediately after she was assaulted. She said, “Those guys tried to rape me and took my purse.” In holding the statements admissible as part of the res gestae this court said, “She was still suffering from her recent harrowing experience. [A witness] testified ‘she was pretty well shook up.’ ” The statements in Watson, unlike Fishel’s warning, helped explain the events of the crime charged itself.' In addition, they were spontaneous utterances resulting from the harrowing experience.
Nor is the result here supported by State v. Hinkle, 229 N.W.2d 744 (Iowa). There a witness was permitted to testify to a statement she made to a neighbor just before the murder with which defendant was charged; the witness had told the neighbor of an earlier conversation she had with the murder victim, in which the victim stated her fear of the defendant. The court said:
It is obvious from the record that this report by one in the vortex of a fear-ridden neighborhood immediately prior to the homicide caused [the witness] to approach [the victim’s] home and return at once in great excitement just before she heard [the victim’s] door being broken down. . . . [W]e believe the statement in issue was admissible, for the purpose of showing it was said, under the Lyons [State v. Lyons, 210 N.W.2d 543 (Iowa)] rule, in explaining the actions of these witnesses. 229 N.W.2d at 748, 749. (Italics added.)
The court was dealing with a witness who was immediately involved in the crime.
Finally, the result here is not supported by State v. Lyons, 210 N.W.2d 543 (Iowa). The controverted statements were made there by the defendant himself during the very course of the robbery with which he was charged. Like the out-of-court statements in Watson and Hinkle, those statements occurred during the course of the crime charged or helped explain the actions of the people immediately involved with the crime. Such cannot be said of Fishel or of his warning. Moreover, I think we should take care that in admitting utterances to show the whole picture of a crime we do not let in hearsay evidence of a fact in issue. The error does not stop with admission of the hearsay evidence; it is magnified during jury argument.
Evidence of Fishel’s warning was relevant, and was offered, to prove Sharen Leonard’s intention to harm her former husband — the fighting issue in the case. The policy reasons underlying the hearsay rule call for its application here.
I would reverse for a new trial.