Williams v. State

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting several witnesses' statements that the defendant had thrown something while he was fleeing from officers under the excited utterance exception to hearsay rule.

Thank you for sharing!

Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

Travis Williams appeals from his convictions for possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute, abandonment of a controlled substance, two counts of obstruction of an officer, insufficient motor vehicle tag light, and insufficient motor vehicle tail light. Williams asserts that insufficient evidence supports his drug-related convictions, that the trial court erred by admitting hearsay as an excited utterance, and that the admission of the hearsay violated his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm. Viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, the record shows that two Houston County sheriff’s deputies sharing a patrol car stopped Williams when they saw him driving a car with inoperable tag and tail lights. One of the deputies, Chambers, stepped out of the patrol car and asked Williams for his license. Williams told the deputy that he did not have one and “took off running.”

Deputy Chambers ran after Williams on foot, while his partner, Deputy Alexander, gave chase in the patrol car. When Deputy Chambers lost sight of Williams, he radioed Williams’s last location and direction of travel to Deputy Alexander. When Williams rounded a corner, Deputy Alexander saw him running past a group of five or six people with his hands inside his pants and the zipper down. At this point, Deputy Alexander reached down for his radio to relay that he had spotted Williams. Although he lost sight of Williams for a couple of seconds while he reached for the radio, he heard more than one person “screaming out that he had threw something.” Deputy Alexander did not see Williams throw anything. After Williams ran in front of his patrol car, Deputy Alexander got out of his car, chased Williams on foot through a parking lot, and caught Williams, with his zipper still down.

Williams v. State

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting several witnesses' statements that the defendant had thrown something while he was fleeing from officers under the excited utterance exception to hearsay rule.

Share with Email

Thank you for sharing!

Trending Stories

More From ALM

Subscribe to Daily Report