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California Hearsay and Out of Court Statements in Criminal Courts

By Walin & Klarich

You?re charged with a crime. Does a victim identification always have to be confirmed in court? The answer is not always. In California one of the exceptions is in California Evidence Code 1240. It allows some out of court statements of a witness where the statement was made spontaneously, while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by such perception. The recent case of People v. Stamphill is a good example of how low a court can go. In that case the statements were made some 30 minutes after the incident (a battery) when the public were asking questions. The victim was not excited, but was upset and breathing heavily. It took the victim 15 seconds to identify the suspect. The court still allowed the statements and identification into evidence when the victim was not personally in court...continue to full post

Full post as published by Southern California Criminal Defense Blog on March 28, 2009 (boomark / email).