I am about to leave to spend the night at my boyfriend’s house so that he can keep an eye on me.” This statement could be admitted under the Rule 803(3) exception to establish circumstantially that the victim was at her boyfriend’s house on the night of her murder. Consider the following statement made by a murder victim to a neighbor: “I’m not feeling well today. 754, 760 (1987).Īnother common scenario when this exception arises is when a statement shows the declarant’s intent to engage in a future act. the attendant circumstances context to the victim’s statement and clearly reflect the victim’s fearful state of mind.” In sexual assault cases, the victim’s statements indicating fear of the defendant have been held admissible under this exception and relevant to whether the activity was committed by force and against the victim’s will. 231, 235 (2004), for example, the victim gave a witness photographs showing the victim with a black eye and told the witness to keep the photographs “and if anything should happen, to give them to the police.” The court held that although the statement itself contained “no express declaration of fear. The victim need not expressly state his or her fear of the defendant for the statement to fall within this exception. Such evidence typically is deemed relevant because it shows the status of the relationship between the defendant and the victim. In criminal cases this exception often is used to admit a murder victim’s statement that he or she fears the defendant. Rule 803(3) provides a hearsay exception for statements “of the declarant’s then existing state of mind, emotion, sensation, or physical condition (such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, and bodily health), but not including a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless it relates to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of declarant’s will.” Remember that unlike the Rule 804 exceptions, the Rule 803 exceptions don’t require unavailability. In this post I’ll focus on the Rule 803(3) exception for statements of then existing mental, emotional, or physical condition.
I’ve previously blogged about hearsay exceptions for admissions by party-opponents ( here), present sense impressions and excited utterances ( here), and statements for purposes of medical diagnosis and treatment ( here).
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