People v. Moore

51 Misc. 3d 6, 28 N.Y.S.3d 552
CourtAppellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York
DecidedDecember 31, 2015
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 51 Misc. 3d 6 (People v. Moore) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Terms of the Supreme Court of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Moore, 51 Misc. 3d 6, 28 N.Y.S.3d 552 (N.Y. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Memorandum.

Ordered that the judgment of conviction is affirmed.

Defendant was charged, in a prosecutor’s information, with attempted assault in the third degree (Penal Law §§ 110.00, [8]*8120.00 [1]), attempted criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation (Penal Law §§ 110.00, 121.11 [a]), menacing in the third degree (Penal Law § 120.15), and harassment in the second degree (Penal Law § 240.26 [1]), based on allegations that defendant had beaten and choked his female companion. At a nonjury trial, the arresting officer testified that, while on motor patrol, she was flagged down by the victim, who was “crying, bleeding from the left side of her face, . . . highly upset,” and exhibiting “bruising and swelling.” The officer asked her “what was wrong,” whereupon the victim “pointed to the defendant,” who stood nearby among a crowd of onlookers, and stated that he had “assaulted” her. The victim’s statement was received into evidence, over objection, under the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule. After photographs of the victim, taken shortly after the incident by the arresting officer, were admitted without objection, the People rested their case, noting that the victim, having apparently left the District Attorney’s jurisdiction, would not testify. The defense moved for a trial order of dismissal, arguing that the victim’s statement that defendant had “assaulted” her was “conclusory,” that the People’s failure to establish the time between the incident and the victim’s statement rendered it inadmissible as an excited utterance, and that, without the statement, the People’s proof was legally insufficient. The Criminal Court reserved decision on the motion, and the defense rested without presenting a case. Without ruling on the motion, the court convicted defendant of attempted assault in the third degree and acquitted defendant of the remaining charges. On appeal, defendant raises the arguments made in support of the dismissal motion, adding that, even if the victim’s statement was properly admitted, the proof was legally insufficient to establish defendant’s intent to commit the offense, and, if legally sufficient, the conviction was against the weight of the evidence.

An excited utterance results from “the stress of excitement caused by an external event sufficient to still . . . reflective faculties, thereby preventing opportunity for deliberation which might lead the declarant to be untruthful” (People v Edwards, 47 NY2d 493, 497 [1979]; see also People v Johnson, 1 NY3d 302, 306 [2003] [an excited utterance is one made “under the immediate and uncontrolled domination of the senses, and during the brief period when considerations of self-interest could not have been brought fully to bear by reasoned reflection”], [9]*9quoting People v Marks, 6 NY2d 67, 71 [1959]). It is “[t]he spontaneity of the declaration [that] guarantees its trustworthiness and reliability” (People v Cantave, 21 NY3d 374, 381 [2013]). The trial courts are accorded “wide discretion” in determining whether the standard of admissibility of such statements has been met, and their rulings “should not be disturbed on appeal” absent an abuse of that discretion (People v Carroll, 95 NY2d 375, 385 [2000]). There is no dispute as to the victim’s “agitated or stressed condition” at the time of the statement, and it cannot be said that the exception is inapplicable because it was uttered in response to a question (Edwards, 47 NY2d at 498-499; People v Gantt, 48 AD3d 59, 64 [2007]), which is “merely” a factor bearing on the analysis of a statement’s admissibility (People v Brown, 70 NY2d 513, 519 [1987]; see e.g. People v Fratello, 92 NY2d 565, 570-571 [1998]). Here, the challenge to the statement is based principally on the lack of evidence as to the precise time that elapsed between the attack and the accusation, which, defendant contends, renders the foundation proof insufficient to establish that the victim spoke with genuine spontaneity, uninfluenced by “the impetus of studied reflection” (Edwards, 47 NY2d at 497). Addressing this factor, the Johnson court stated:

“As we have several times noted, there can be no definite or fixed period of time within which the declaration must have been made, and each case must depend upon its own circumstances. ‘The test is whether the utterance was made before there has been time to contrive and misrepresent, i.e., while the nervous excitement may be supposed still to dominate and the reflective powers to be yet in abeyance’ (People v Brown, 70 NY2d 513, 518 [1987] . . . ). Ultimately, ‘the time for reflection is not measured in minutes or seconds, but rather is measured by facts’ (People v Vasquez, 88 NY2d 561, 579 [1996] ...)....
“[T]he test [is] . . . whether the declarant is capable of studied reflection and therefore incapable of fabrication” (1 NY3d at 306-307; see also People v Cotto, 92 NY2d 68, 79 [1998]).

Thus, the failure precisely to establish the time that elapsed between an incident and a statement does not, standing alone, require that the statement be deemed inadmissible (see People v Smith, 170 AD2d 548, 548 [1991]; People v Valentine, 40 Misc 3d 28, 31 [App Term, 2d Dept, 2d, 11th & 13th [10]*10Jud Dists 2013]). The officer’s account of her initial encounter with the victim, the credibility of which is not questioned, permits the inference that the victim was fleeing the scene of an incident that had occurred shortly before, for example, to obtain medical attention, or protection from her assailant who stood nearby among a crowd of onlookers. Further, the injuries exhibited by the victim, most tellingly, a wound from which she was still bleeding, do not support defendant’s assertion that there may well have been “a significant lapse of time between the [statement] and the startling event” (People v Smith, 48 AD3d 298, 299 [2008]; see People v Livrieri, 125 AD3d 579, 579-580 [2015] [911 tape “reveals that the victim was in an agitated state and was still operating under the influence of defendant’s attack, notwithstanding intervening events”]; People v Sykes, 26 AD3d 203, 203 [2006] [while there was no testimony as to the time interval between the incident and the statement by a nontestifying parking garage attendant that two cars had been stolen at gunpoint, “(t)he evidence, including testimony as to the declarant’s demeanor, supported the conclusion that the robbery had just occurred and that the declarant was still under the influence of the stress of the incident”]; People v Johnson, 272 AD2d 555, 555 [2000] [statement of the victim who “flagged down a police vehicle” to report that he had just been robbed and who appeared “nervous” and “shocked” was properly admitted because “(t)he delay between the robbery and the declarations . . . was not sufficient to destroy the indicia of reliability upon which this hearsay exception rests”]). Certainly, there appears to be less time involved than the 10 to 15 minutes of driving through traffic by the victim, between an attack and her statement to friends, which was held in People v Auleta (82 AD3d 1417, 1419 [2011]) to not preclude, based on the victim’s agitated state, a finding that her accusation was an excited utterance. Similarly, in People v Hayes

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Bluebook (online)
51 Misc. 3d 6, 28 N.Y.S.3d 552, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-moore-nyappterm-2015.