Court Opinion

ID: 9593360
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:21:52.355947+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:20.787490
License: Public Domain

*381WUEST, Justice
(dissenting).
I would affirm. As Chief Justice Miller points out in his dissent, the precedent in this Court, State v. Bult, 351 N.W.2d 731 (S.D.1984) and State v. Logue, 372 N.W.2d 151 (S.D.1985), holds time alone is not the controlling factor. Rather, the crucial consideration is whether the declaration made resulted from conscious reflection. Since the facts of every case will be different, we must give great deference to the decision of the trial judge. For this reason, a trial court may not be reversed, except for an abuse of discretion. Here, the trial court did not abuse its discretion because it could reasonably conclude the victim’s statements to the three witnesses, Groseclose, Phillips and Feuerstein, were not the result of conscious reflection. See also, State v. Brings Plenty, 490 N.W.2d 261, 268 (S.D.1992).
The majority cites State v. Floody, 481 N.W.2d 242 (S.D.1992) for authority to reverse. As the author of Bult, Logue and Floody, it is my opinion the majority is wrong. We did not hold the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the statements in Floody. We said we were hesitant to rule those statements came within the excited utterance exception when “the length of time between the startling event and the statement is unknown.” We also pointed out the stress evident in Floody was not from the exciting event, but from recounting the event. Id. at 250. However, we went on to say, because the statements were properly admitted pursuant to the tender years statute, any error was harmless. Thus, we did not, in fact, decide the excited utterance issue.
Finally, I agree with the Chief Justice the testimony of the other three witnesses was merely cumulative and, as such, does not constitute prejudicial error. I respectfully dissent.