three-year-old child calmly reported assault in school that day during normal dinnertime conversation
How later courts described this case
- three-year-old child calmly reported assault in school that day during normal dinnertime conversation
- conviction reversed since total evidence of guilt consisted of inadmissible hearsay
- "This exception .to the hearsay rule has commonly been applied only when there has been independent evidence of an exciting event.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ALBERT LEE STEPHENS, Circuit Judge sitting by designation
(concurring).
I concur in the decision. I also concur in that part of the opinion which treats of the testimony of police officers in regard to what the child had said “a day or two after the alleged assault,” and in regard to an officer’s testimony as to his “belief as to what appellant had done.”
While it may be useful to the trial court for us to pass upon the admission of the mother’s testimony as to the child’s expressions to her, the importance of the point and the inherent danger of attempting to delimit the admissibility of testimony of that class make me feel that the better course would be to pass upon it only when it becomes imperative that we do so.