Court Opinion

ID: 9706057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:30:36.746182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:18.801912
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE O’MALLEY, specially concurring: I agree that this case must be remanded because defendant did not waive his right to a trial by jury, but I disagree with the majority’s resolution of the hearsay issues it anticipates will recur on remand. First, I disagree that DelValle’s statements were not excited utterances. The majority states very little of the law governing the admission of excited utterances and in fact does not even lay out the bare requisites for admission. Therefore, I will do so. The proponent of the statement must demonstrate: (1) the occurrence of an event or condition sufficiently startling to produce a spontaneous and unreflecting statement; (2) absence of time to fabricate; and (3) that the proffered statement related to the circumstances of the occurrence. People v. Williams, 193 Ill. 2d 306, 352 (2000). Notably, defendant admits that the first and third elements were satisfied here — that is, DelValle’s statements concerned a sufficiently startling event (a “heated argument,” as defendant puts it). The remaining question is whether DelValle lacked time to fabricate. The majority inexplicably ignores the rule that the trial court has considerable discretion in determining whether to admit a hearsay statement as an excited utterance. People v. Georgakapoulos, 303 Ill. App. 3d 1001, 1012 (1999); People v. Gibson, 99 Ill. App. 3d 1068, 1076 (1981) (“Trial courts are vested with considerable discretion in admitting testimony which comes within the spontaneous declaration exception to the hearsay rule, for each case must rest on its own facts”). The majority does not recite this standard of review and indeed appears not even to heed the standard implicitly. While the majority purports to issue an advisory opinion on how the trial court ought to rule if the relevant facts on remand are not changed, the majority fails to consider how the trial court actually ruled on the facts as they now stand. Though it owes deference to the trial court, the majority simply addresses the arguments of the parties as if it were writing on a blank slate, failing to defer to — and indeed simply ignoring — the trial court’s ruling on this fact-intensive issue. The majority finds that the State failed to prove that DelValle lacked the time to fabricate her statements to McMahon. The majority considers it conclusive that the State did not establish what transpired during DelValle’s conversation with the backup officer prior to her conversation with McMahon. Embarking on what it admits is “just speculation,” the majority suggests: “[I]t is possible that [DelValle] may have had opportunity to reflect on her statements, moving them outside the realm of excited utterances.” 353 Ill. App. 3d at 810. It is rather alarming in itself to see a court of law base a decision on “just speculation,” but the majority combines its speculation with a flawed understanding of the law. Knowing nothing about the conversation between DelValle and the backup officer, the majority decides that DelValle’s later remarks to McMahon were not spontaneous because the prior conversation could have allowed her time to reflect and fabricate. Thus, the majority holds that DelValle’s statements should be excluded simply because of an intervening conversation. This is clearly contrary to law. The supreme court has “rejected] out of hand any contention that a declarant cannot make a spontaneous declaration to a person after having spoken previously to another.” People v. House, 141 Ill. 2d 323, 386 (1990). In determining whether there has been sufficient time to fabricate, the “critical inquiry” is “ ‘ “whether the statement was made while the excitement of the event predominated.” ’ [Citations.]” People v. Williams, 193 Ill. 2d 306, 353 (2000). McMahon testified that DelValle’s demeanor when he spoke to her was the same as when he had arrived at the scene: she was distraught, frightened, and crying, and her voice quivered with emotion as she spoke. Since defendant does not dispute that DelValle’s statements concerned an event that could produce an unreflecting remark, and there is no basis to believe that her level of excitement diminished before she spoke to McMahon, there simply is no warrant for ruling that her statements are inadmissible as excited utterances. The majority relies on People v. Sommerville, 193 Ill. App. 3d 161 (1990), where the court held that statements made by a sexual assault victim to a police officer in reference to the assault did not constitute excited utterances because the victim had previously spoken at length about the attack to her fiancé, their conversation consisting of “detailed repetition of answers to *** successive questions,” which “removed the spontaneity and immediacy required for spontaneous declarations.” Sommerville, 193 Ill. App. 3d at 175. Here, of course, there was no evidence of the content of the intervening conversation. The majority, resolving all doubts against the State, speculates that the conversation may have occurred like the one in Sommerville and in so doing ignores the critical question of whether DelValle was still under the excitement of the event when she spoke to McMahon, the most direct evidence of which was her actual demeanor when speaking. Illinois courts have recognized that a declarant’s excitement from the triggering event can outlast an intervening conversation. See, e.g., House, 141 Ill. 2d at 386 (victim’s statements to officer 2% hours after the alleged attack were admissible as excited utterances despite intervening conversation with another police officer); Georgakapoulos, 303 Ill. App. 3d at 1015 (victim’s successive statements to different individuals after the attack were admissible as excited utterances; relying on House’s holding that statements are not per se inadmissible simply because made after a previous conversation). In speculating its way to a rejection of the trial court’s fact-bound determination, the majority both ignores substantive law and dispenses with the most basic premises of appellate review. Given my conclusion that DelValle’s statements were excited utterances, I would reach the issue of whether the statements were nonetheless barred by the confrontation clause as interpreted in Crawford. The majority, however, discusses the federal issue despite having found the evidence barred on state-law grounds. This is inadvisable. A reviewing court should not reach constitutional issues if the case can be determined on other grounds. People v. Nash, 173 Ill. 2d 423, 432 (1996); City of Chicago v. Powell, 315 Ill. App. 3d 1136, 1140 (2000). I am especially puzzled by the majority’s insistence on reaching a constitutional issue of such elusiveness as is raised here. The Court in Crawford left “for another day any effort to spell out a comprehensive definition of ‘testimonial.’ ” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 203, 124 S. Ct. at 1374. The Court acknowledged that its refusal to provide a definition might cause uncertainty in lower courts, but stressed that the greater uncertainty was in prior law that the Court was overruling. Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68 n.10, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 203 n.10, 124 S. Ct. at 1374 n.10. After finding that a witness’s statements to police after Miranda warnings were “testimonial” because they were “given in response to structured police questioning,” the Court offered a tentative, minimalist definition of “testimonial” for future reference: “Whatever else the term covers, it applies at a minimum to prior testimony at a preliminary hearing, before a grand jury, or at a former trial; and to police interrogations. These are the modern practices with closest kinship to the abuses at which the Confrontation Clause was directed.” Crawford, 541 U.S. at 68, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 203, 124 S. Ct. at 1374. With the ink hardly dry on Crawford’s Copernican shift in federal constitutional law, a panel of the Illinois Appellate Court plummets undaunted, but for no good reason, into the murky waters left in Crawford’s wake. In its zeal, the majority stretches the definition of “testimonial” to unprecedented girth in Illinois. As I write this, just six Illinois cases have had to decide what constitutes a “testimonial” statement under Crawford-, all six decided that the statements at issue were inadmissible under Crawford. See In re Rolandis G., 352 Ill. App. 3d 776, 781 (2004) (victim’s statements to police on the day of the alleged assault, and to a child advocacy worker a week later, were testimonial, being the result of “formal and systematic questioning”); People v. McMillan, 352 Ill. App. 3d 336, 344 (2004) (statements made by driving-under-the-influence (DUI) defendant’s friend, who inexplicably appeared at the scene of the crash while a police officer was questioning defendant, were testimonial; the witness’s statements were in response to an “accusatory” question by the officer); In re T.T., 351 Ill. App. 3d 976, 989-91 (2004) (victim’s statements to a police officer six months after alleged assault were testimonial as the result of “structured police questioning”; victim’s statements to Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) worker four months after the alleged assault were also testimonial because the DCFS worker was a “government officer” who took the victim’s “formal statement *** with an eye toward prosecution”); People v. Thompson, 349 Ill. App. 3d 587, 594 (2004) (victim’s written statement, made in the course of obtaining an order of protection in response to an attack the day before, was testimonial); People v. Martinez, 348 Ill. App. 3d 521, 534 (2004) (witness’s written statement given several months after charged incident was testimonial); People v. Patterson, 347 Ill. App. 3d 1044, 1050-51 (2004) (witness’s grand jury testimony was testimonial). The circumstances surrounding the statements in these cases were significantly different from what we see in this case. DelValle did not give her statements in a formal setting, months, weeks, or even days after the alleged incident. Rather, she gave them at the scene of the alleged incident mere minutes after the incident supposedly occurred. Moreover, there is no evidence that DelValle was subjected to structured questioning. Asked how he went about questioning DelValle, McMahon testified: “I asked her basically *** what was happening.” McMahon then proceeded simply to relate DelValle’s story. It seems that McMahon asked but one question, not a series of questions. The closest case factually is McMillan, where the statements were given immediately after the crash that was the basis of the DUI charge. However, the salient difference here is that DelValle gave her statements while still under the apparent stress of a startling incident, thus diminishing the possibility of reflection and fabrication, whereas the witness in McMillan betrayed no indication that he was involved in the crash. I can only conclude that the majority has picked an inopportune time to expand Crawford far beyond the facts of Crawford itself and of subsequent Illinois applications.