Court Opinion

ID: 9788342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:43:14.582709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:08.397143
License: Public Domain

THORNE, Judge
(dissenting):
¶ 35 I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion, as I do not believe that Defendant preserved his rule 801(d)(1)(B) claim for appeal. See Utah R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(B). Defendant’s objections failed to satisfy the first prong of the preservation rule, that the trial *588court be given “ ‘an opportunity to address a claimed error and, if appropriate, correct it.’ ” State v. Holgate, 2000 UT 74, ¶ 11, 10 P.3d 346 (quoting State v. Eldredge, 773 P.2d 29, 36 (Utah 1989)). Accordingly, I would decline to address Defendant’s rule 801(d)(1)(B) argument and would affirm the judgment below.
¶ 36 Defendant twice objected to Detective Oberg’s testimony about the K.B. interview on rule 801(d)(1)(B) grounds. The first objection came before Oberg took the witness stand. The second came during Oberg’s testimony, but before she was asked to relay any particular out-of-court statement by K.B.1 Both objections sought to exclude Oberg’s testimony about the K.B. interview in its entirety.
¶ 37 The trial court properly overruled these categorical objections to Oberg’s testimony about the interview, even under the premotive rule adopted by today’s majority opinion. During cross-examination, Defendant attacked K.B.’s direct-examination testimony about being afraid to report Defendant’s actions, stating, “I haven’t seen anywhere you’ve said that before.” The clear implication of Defendant’s comment was that K.B.’s alleged fear of Defendant was something she had just made up on the witness stand, i.e., that it was a recent fabrication. Defendant also raised other alleged inconsistencies in K.B.’s testimony that may also have been subject to rebuttal under rule 801(d)(1)(B).
¶ 38 Any statement made by K.B. to Oberg in the 2003 interview that was consistent with the idea that K.B. was afraid to report Defendant would have been admissible under rule 801(d)(1)(B) to rebut Defendant’s charge that she had fabricated this fear on the witness stand. The other alleged inconsistencies would also have implicated rule 801(d)(1)(B). Thus, at the time of Defendant’s objections, the trial court was aware that Oberg might have some non-hearsay testimony to offer about K.B.’s prior statements, and properly overruled Defendant’s categorical objections to her testimony.
¶ 39 In hindsight, much of Oberg’s testimony may not have been admissible, at least not as non-hearsay under rule 801(d)(1)(B). However, at the time of Defendant’s objections, the trial court had no way of knowing that Oberg’s testimony would stray beyond the issue of K.B.’s fear of Defendant or other topics that might properly fall within rule 801(d)(1)(B). Accordingly, the trial court correctly overruled Defendant’s objections at the time they were made and properly allowed the State to elicit testimony about K.B.’s out-of-court statements, subject to Defendant’s continuing ability to object to any particular statements that did not fall within rule 801(d)(1)(B). Such specific and timely objections never materialized.
¶40 Defendant’s initial objections did not shift the burden to the trial court judge to weigh each subsequent question to Oberg against her memory of K.B.’s testimony for purposes of applying rule 801.2 Rather, the burden of objecting to individual hearsay statements remained with Defendant, who failed to raise the rule 801(d)(1)(B) issue again. Defendant’s failure to further object left the trial court to speculate that Defendant was allowing hearsay testimony to come in as a matter of trial strategy, that the testimony fell within an applicable exclusion or exception, or that there was some other i'eason for Defendant’s failure to object. In any event, the trial court was under no obligation to conduct an ongoing and unrequest*589ed rule 801(d)(1)(B) evaluation of Oberg’s testimony.
¶ 41 In conclusion, Defendant did not bring any specific rule 801(d)(1)(B) error to the trial court’s attention, and thus did not preserve the issue for appeal. See State v. Holgate, 2000 UT 74, ¶ 11, 10 P.3d 346. The trial court properly overruled the generalized objections that Defendant did raise, and Defendant failed to specifically object when Oberg actually provided testimony that was arguably hearsay. Under these circumstances, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.

. The State's question to Oberg that prompted Defendant’s second rule 801(d)(1)(B) objection was, "Let's talk about that interview with [K.B.]. What did you talk to [K.B.] about in the beginning?”

. Nearly all of the jurisdictions that follow the premotive rule require predicate showings for admissibility in the same manner as other evi-dentiary questions. See Frank W. Bullock Jr. & Steven Gardner, Prior Consistent Statements and the Premotive Rule, 24 Fla. St. U.L.Rev. 509, 515 (1997). In these jurisdictions, the trial judge determine[s] whether a prior consistent statement was premotive or postmotive based on evidence presented to the jury up to the time the statement's admission was sought, evidence presented to the judge out of the jury's presence, or a combination of these two means. The judge's determination of this question would normally dictate the admissibility of the statement.
Id. For this to occur, however, the trial court must be informed of the need to make this determination by a properly focused objection.