674 P2D 721 - Goldade v. State

How this case has been cited

Cited by 43 later decisions — most recently June 2020 · most notably State v. Smith (1985), United States v. Renville (1985)

2 federal appellate · 38 state decisions — followed in 16 states

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

ROSE, Justice,

¶1joining in the dissent of BROWN, Justice, with the following reservations.

¶2I join in the dissenting opinion of Justice Brown because I believe that it properly analyzes the law with respect to the admissibility of out-of-court declarations pursuant to Rule 803(4), W.R.E. I disagree, however, with the suggestion that the “excited utterance” exception, Rule 803(2), W.R.E., could be expanded to cover this case. As Justice Brown points out, the record does not support a conclusion that the child was in a state of excitement at the time that she made the statements. Therefore, the application of Rule 803(2) would require unacceptable distortion of the rule’s requirements.

¶3In addition, I see no reason to expand the existing exceptions to the hearsay rule. Rule 803(24), W.R.E., the catch-all exception, is sufficiently comprehensive to allow into evidence trustworthy, out-of-court statements, so long as all of the safeguards of that rule are met.