 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Wooten v. State11/9/2005
ng her around. I advised Mrs. Stone that she should go to the Camden Municipal Building and fill out an Affidavit Warrant of Arrest for Battery in the 3rd Degree and also fill out a restraining order to keep him away from her.
I prepared a report of my conversation with Mrs. Stone after the van was found. The reason that I didn't prepare a report immediately is that we get people come in and ask questions like this all the time. They want some kind of guidance as to what to do. We mostly work felony cases. She came in, she knew me, she wanted my advice. I gave her the advice, I really didn't think it was relevant to write a report. I didn't think there was a reason. After she disappeared and after the van was found, I made the report because I felt there was a reason to make one. I don't know if she went to Municipal Court or anywhere else and initiated the action that I suggested that she could do.
Hearsay is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Ark. R. Evid. 801(c) (2005). The majority holds that the decedent's statement to Lieutenant Dickinson was not hearsay because it was not offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted (i.e., that appellant committed a battery against her), but instead simply to establish appellant's motive for killing her. This is preposterous. Certainly, in a proper case, evidence that would otherwise be hearsay may be relevant to motive without regard to the truth of the matter asserted, see Dednam v. State, ___Ark. ___, ___ S.W.3d ___ (January 6, 2005), and statements proving motive are not excluded by the hearsay rule. See Piercy v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 311 Ark. 424, 844 S.W.2d 337 (1993). However, the fact that the victim made a report concerning alleged activities of appellant to Lieutenant Dickinson could have no bearing whatsoever on appellant's motive in the present case for the simple reason that there was no evidence that appellant was aware that the victim had made any such report. In the absence of evidence of such knowledge, the only possible motive to be derived from Lieutenant Dickinson's testimony would be that appellant decided to kill the victim to prevent her from reporting the battery to the police, and so to avoid any possibility of prosecution for third- degree battery, a Class A misdemeanor bearing a maximum penalty of a $1000 fine and a jail term not to exceed one year. See Ark. Code Ann. ยงยง 5-4-201(b)(1) and 5-4-401(b)(1) (Repl. 1997). Even if it were reasonable to conclude that this would motivate any sane person to commit a homicide (and, I submit, it is not), the fact remains that the establishment even of this feeble motive would require the fact finder to believe that appellant did in fact perpetrate a battery on the victim - which is to say, that it depends on the truth of the matter asserted by the victim to Lieutenant Dickinson. This statement was hearsay.
The majority also holds that Lieutenant Dickinson's statement was in fact hearsay, but was admissible under the residual exception set out in Ark. R. Evid. 805(b)(5), which permits the introduction of:
A statement not specifically covered by any of the foregoing exceptions but having equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, if the court determines that (i) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact; (ii) the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts; and (iii) the general purposes of these rules and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statements into evidence. However, a statemen
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Arkansas Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|