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Abstract: 

Our case summaries this issue review important decisions involving the right of the accused to confront witnesses and the admissibility of “excited utterances” as exceptions to prohibitions against hearsay evidnece. A California ruling held that universities do not need to provide students accused of intimate partner violence the right to cross-examine survivors at misconduct hearings, in the California Supreme Court’s decision in Boermeester v. Carry, providing much needed clarity on the procedures required during campus disciplinary proceedings in sexual assault and intimate partner violence (IPV) cases. Also in California, an abuser’s probation revocation was reversed in a case where a victim’s spontaneous statements were admitted as evidence at trial even though she refused to testify—the California Supreme Court ruled that a probationer has a similar confrontation right in a revocation hearing as criminal defendants in confronting testimonial witnesses. In Illinois, the state Appellate Court affirmed a domestic battery conviction where admission of victim’s statement to landlord and call to 911 were “excited utterances.” In Arkansas, domestic battery and terroristic threatening convictions were affirmed by the Court of Appeals of Arkansas, where victim’s statements to a neighbor and officer were excited utterances. And in North Dakota, a conviction for terrorizing affirmed where a child’s cry “don’t kill my mom” was properly admitted as an excited utterance.

Keywords: Title IX Proceedings and Rights of the Accused; Excited Utterance Exceptions to Hearsay Rule

Affiliations:  1: Contributing Editor; 2: Associate Editor.