Court Opinion

ID: 9588179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:31:12.121963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:29.716606
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, C. J.,
dissenting.
Recognizing that the modern trend in revamping the law of evidence is to relax the exclusionary rules of hearsay, nevertheless I think that the statement purported to have been made by the so-called “phantom witness” should not have been admitted into evidence.
*452I realize that defendant’s testimony cannot be excluded simply because it may be self-serving.① However, if the evidence is not only self-serving but is attributable to a source which is anonymous, then I think that it should be excluded. Where the declarant is identified the adversary can verify whether the statement was in fact made. But with an anonymous declarant a party witness is free to create phantom witnesses and put in their mouths whatever words are necessary to establish an exception to the hearsay rule.② As a safeguard against this danger we should require the party witness to identify the source of the declaration. This was not done in the present case, even with the aid of the police report.
I would exclude the evidence even if the alleged statement had referred only to the fact that the child had run into the side of defendant’s car. The statement is even more objectionable in that it expresses the declarant’s conclusion as to defendant’s fault. In holding that this kind of evidence is admissible the court is inviting parties not only to fabricate the observations made by third persons, but to put in their mouths the answer to the question which the jury is asked to decide.
I would hold that the evidence should have been excluded.
Howell, J., joins in this dissent.

 See McCormick on Evidence § 275, p. 588 (1954). There it is also pointed out that a party’s out-of-court declarations are admissible if such declarations fall within an exception to the hearsay rule.

 Where the witness is not a party to the litigation he should be permitted to testify as to a spontaneous statement made by an anonymous declarant. Under these circumstances, the danger of fabrication present when a party witness testifies is minimized.