Court Opinion

ID: 9756117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 21:08:23.247315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:56:12.586334
License: Public Domain

HOFFMAN, Judge,
concurring:
While I agree with the dissent that the testimony of the victim’s mother concerning his statements about the sexual abuse by appellant were not admissible under the exception to the hearsay rule for excited utterances, I believe that the testimony was admissible as evidence of a prompt complaint.
Evidence of a complaint of a sexual assault1 is “competent evidence, properly admitted where limited to establish that a complaint was made and also to identify the occurrence complained of with the offense charged.” Commonwealth v. Freeman, 295 Pa.Superior Ct. 467, 475, 441 A.2d 1327, 1331 (1982). See also Commonwealth v. Green, 487 Pa. 322, 328, 409 A.2d 371, 374 (1979); Commonwealth v. Krick, 164 Pa.Superior Ct. 516, 522, 67 A.2d 746, 749-50 (1949). In the instant case, the victim’s mother testified about her son’s statements concerning the assault as follows:
[District Attorney:] I’ll repeat my question. Directing your attention to Monday morning, March 2, 1981, you had a conversation with your son ... with regard to blood on his underpants. Would you please state as best as you can recollect for the members of the jury the substance of that conversation?
[Victim’s mother:] He told me that his dad made him do bad things. He said his dad stuck his penis in his bum.
N.T. October 14, 1981 at 75. I believe that this testimony was properly limited to establishing that a complaint was made and to identifying the occurrence complained of with the offense charged. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Krick, *396supra (admitting father’s testimony in statutory rape prosecution that his daughter told him that she had intercourse with the defendant).2
The dissent, however, would find that the complaint was inadmissible because it was not made promptly enough. See slip op. at 4-5. I disagree.
It should be observed too that the weight attaching to a complaint depends upon the promptness with which it is made and the nature and explanation given for any delay. Indeed an unreasonable or unexplained delay may, in the circumstances, justify an inference against the sincerity of the complainant. ... The weight of the testimony is for the jury but the court should carefully instruct it as to the relative probative value of prompt and delayed complaints, the circumstances in which they are made or withheld, and the possible inferences which may be legitimately drawn from them.
Commonwealth v. Krick, supra, 164 Pa.Superior Ct. at 522, 67 A.2d at 750. Here, the trial court admitted the evidence of the victim’s complaint and specifically instructed the jury on how to weigh the evidence of his complaint:
[I]n determining the facts here, consider that there was a period of time from apparently early Saturday morning when [the victim] said that his father committed the act *397that is alleged to have happened here, and the time of about 7:00 a.m. on the following Monday that [the victim], in response to his mother’s inquiry, told his mother what allegedly took place.
Now, the fact that there was that time lapse does not mean that the incident didn’t occur. It doesn’t mean that [the victim] made up this. It doesn’t mean that he’s not telling the truth. However, you can consider, just as one of the elements in determining the credibility to be given to the evidence here and the testimony here, that lapse of time.
You might consider that during that lapse of time that [the victim] was for the most part in the company of his father, or at least in his father’s home. These are the kinds of things that you should consider in weighing the testimony on that point, the testimony of [the victim].
The evidence that [the victim] delayed in making his complaint in this case, in other words, the time between the incident and his conversation with his mother, does not necessarily make his testimony unreliable, but may remove from it the assurance of reliability that would accompany the prompt complaint or the outcry which a victim of a crime such as this would ordinarily be expected to make. Therefore, the delay in making the complaint should be considered in evaluating the testimony of [the victim] in deciding whether the act occurred at all, or in — in this case it would have to be at all, because consent is not an issue due to the child’s age.
You must not consider [the victim’s] delay in making the complaint as conclusive evidence that the act did not occur. The failure to make prompt complaint is a factor bearing on the believability or the credibility of [the victim’s] testimony and must be considered by you in light of all the evidence in this case.
N.T. October 14, 1981 at 141, 146-47. Thus, I would find that the trial court properly admitted the testimony of the victim’s mother as evidence of a prompt complaint and *398instructed the jury to determine the weight to be accorded to that evidence.3
I join Judge Olszewski’s opinion insofar as he finds the remainder of appellant’s arguments meritless.

. While evidence of a prompt complaint has traditionally been an issue in cases involving sexual assaults against women, this Court has held that the concept of prompt complaint is also applicable to sexual assaults against men because Pennsylvania’s sexual offense provisions are gender neutral. See Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, 343 Pa.Superior Ct. 486, 492 n. 2, 495 A.2d 569, 572 n. 2 (1985).

. In Commonwealth v. Freeman, supra, this Court stated in dictum, that "evidence of identification of the defendant is beyond the scope of the special rule admitting fresh complaints." Id., 295 Pa.Superior Ct. at 476 n. 3, 441 A.2d 1332 n. 3. This statement, however, is unsupported by our caselaw. As noted above, evidence identifying a defendant has been admitted by this Court under the prompt complaint rule, see Commonwealth v. Krick, supra, and would seem to be part of the collateral evidence that is admissible to identify the occurrance complained of with the offense charged. I also note that in Commonwealth v. Green, supra, our Supreme Court considered the admissibility of a detective’s testimony concerning a prompt complaint by a rape victim. The detective not only testified to the complaint of rape, but also related the complainant’s allegations concerning the time and place of the rape and the identity of the rapists. Before finding the testimony inadmissible on other grounds, the Court noted that there is authority for admitting the particulars of a complaint, such as the assailant’s identity. See id., 295 Pa.Superior Ct. at 328, 409 A.2d at 374 (citing Commonwealth v. Krick for the admissibility of the rapist’s identity).

. I would also note that the delay in the instant case was less than that in other cases where evidence of a complaint has been held admissible. In Commonwealth v. Krick, supra, we upheld the admission of a father’s testimony that his daughter told him of the defendant's sexual assaults five months after the first attack and one month after the second. In Commonwealth v. Rodriguez, supra, we upheld the admission of a mother’s testimony that her son told her of a sexual assault two days after it had occurred. Here, the victim told his mother of the sexual abuse two days after it occurred and within nine hours of returning home from his father’s house. This nine-hour delay is even less significant when one considers that the victim was a nine-year-old boy who had been put to bed immediately upon his return from his father’s home and that he told his mother of the sexual assault upon awakening the following morning.