Oregon v. Edmonds

In 2015, defendant Kelly Edmonds was charged with having raped a five-year-old girl in 1994 or 1995. At the time that the crime occurred, defendant’s wife operated a daycare service out of her and defendant’s home. The victim was regularly left at that day-care. At defendant’s trial, the victim, then twenty-five, testified that, on one occasion, while she was at the daycare, defendant had taken her into another room and raped her. The victim testified that she had reported the rape to her mother on the day that it had happened and to her father, grandmother, therapist, and school counselor in 2002. Defendant’s theory of the case was that the victim had formed a false memory of the rape. In support of that theory, defendant offered testimony from an expert witness that memories can become distorted over time and that false memories are possible. Defendant also presented testimony from the victim’s mother and grandmother that they had only learned of the rape in the past year and had not previously been told about it by the victim. Defendant also called the therapist and the counselor as witnesses, each testifying they had no recollection of the victim telling them about being raped by defendant and that, as mandatory reporters of child abuse, they would have made a report to the Department of Human Services if they had been told. From that evidence, defendant attempted to make the case that the victim’s memories of the rape had formed only recently and were therefore false. The question that this case presented for review was whether a transcript of a police interview, which was unquestionably hearsay evidence, could be introduced under the business records exception, OEC 803(6). That question was complicated by the existence of the official records exception, OEC 803(8)(b), an overlapping hearsay exception that specifically excludes from its scope “matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel” in criminal cases. The Oregon Supreme Court held that the limitations that the legislature placed on the use of law enforcement records in OEC 803(8)(b) could not be avoided by introducing those records under the business records exception. The Court therefore held that the trial court’s decision to admit part of the transcript into evidence was error, and accordingly, reversed defendant’s conviction. View "Oregon v. Edmonds" on Justia Law