Court Opinion

ID: 9777020
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:51:57.864637+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:46.124468
License: Public Domain

David Newbern, Justice, concurring. The majority opinion is correct to a point. I write to express my reservations about the discussion of adoptive admission and harmless error. The majority opinion recognizes the error in the Trial Court’s conclusion that any statement uttered in the presence of the accused is not hearsay. It also seems to recognize that an adoptive admission may occur through the silence of the accused in the face of an accusation to which he should have responded. It then shifts, however, and it seems to base its ultimate conclusion on the statement the accused made to his mother rather than his silence, which Mr. Lightner described as “dumbfounded,” after hearing the accusation of his daughter, the victim. The emphasis here should be on that silence and failure to respond to the accusation. The majority opinion points out that a statement, such as that uttered by the daughter, and evidence of the accused’s silence in the face of that statement become admissible upon the showing of “foundational facts.” Morris v. State, 302 Ark. 532, 792 S.W.2d 288 (1990). The decision to be made by the Trial Court is whether the statement in question is the sort to which a response would be expected if it were not true. When the hearsay objection was made, the question before the Trial Court was whether Mr. and Mrs. Lightner’s statements could be received, not for the truth of the matter asserted by the declarant (their granddaughter), but as a foundation for permitting testimony that the accused did not respond to it. The ruling of the Trial Court admitting the evidence was correct, although he gave the wrong reason. The statement made by the child was without doubt of the sort to which the accused should have made a response if he considered it untrue. His silence constituted an adoptive admission. I would hold the evidence admissible on that basis. Mr. Gatlin was on trial for a particular offense of rape to which his daughter’s statement and his silence in the face of it were relevant. I would not hold it was harmless error to admit those items of evidence on the basis of the daughter’s statement that similar things had occurred on other occasions. Had admission of the daughter’s statement and evidence of Mr. Gatlin’s silence been error, it would not have been harmless. Roaf, J., joins in this concurrence.