Lopez v. State

Fernando Lopez was convicted of stabbing Corey Williams to death in DeKalb County after Williams, bleeding and in pain, told bystanders and a friend on the phone that a man he knew as 'Migo' or 'Amigo' had stabbed him. At trial, jurors also heard secondhand accounts from Williams's friends describing his past drug sales to Lopez and a debt Lopez owed him, statements Williams made before he died. On appeal, Lopez argued all of this was inadmissible hearsay, meaning secondhand statements normally barred from trial because the speaker cannot be cross-examined. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed on the statements about the attack, finding they qualified as an 'excited utterance,' a recognized exception for statements made while still under the stress of a shocking event. It found the statements about drug dealing qualified under a separate, rarely used 'residual' exception because they were trustworthy and necessary, and any improperly admitted testimony was harmless because other evidence said the same thing.

The court held that Williams's statements identifying his attacker qualified as excited utterances because he remained under the stress of being stabbed, and his statements about drug dealing with Lopez were properly admitted under the residual hearsay exception because they were trustworthy, necessary, and served the interests of justice.

The ruling reinforces that Georgia trial courts have latitude to admit a dying or injured victim's identification of an attacker, even hours after the event, and to use secondhand statements about a defendant's relationship with a victim when that evidence reveals motive and no better proof exists.

Affirmed

1. The court applied the excited utterance exception, which allows statements made while a person is still under the stress of a startling event, and found that Williams's statements about his stabbing fit this exception because he was visibly shaken, bleeding, and speaking only minutes after being attacked.
2. It rejected Lopez's argument that the statements were inadmissible 'narratives,' explaining that older cases requiring the declarant to be nearly incapable of deliberate thought were decided under a prior evidence code no longer in effect.
3. For the statements about drug sales and debt made to two close friends, the court applied the residual hearsay exception (O.C.G.A. § 24-8-807), a rarely used rule allowing hearsay only when it is highly trustworthy, more useful than other available evidence, and serves the interests of justice.
4. The court found these statements met that standard because no other evidence proved the drug debt or motive, Williams had close, longstanding relationships with the friends he confided in, and his account matched cell phone records and other testimony.
5. As for one friend's brief, unobjected-to statement about the debt, the court applied the plain error standard, which requires the defendant to show the mistake probably changed the trial's outcome, and found no such effect because the testimony was cumulative of other evidence and the overall case against Lopez, including fingerprints and DNA in a bag left at the scene, was strong.

• malice murder conviction
• hearsay exceptions
• excited utterance
• dying victim statements
• DeKalb County stabbing