Excited utterances are an exception to hearsay. “He’s shooting a mother-f***ing gun at my house!” is an example.
Clement Austin may have been having a bad day. He got into an argument inside his aunt’s apartment. (About what isn’t entirely clear; maybe something about a girl and cigarettes).
He stormed out and as soon as he was outside the apartment, his aunt (still inside) heard five gunshots. She called 911.
She exclaimed the statement above to the dispatcher and described her nephew’s car. Police soon arrived, found Austin, and detained him. Using a key fob from his pocket, they opened his car. Inside, they found a gun.
I’ve written before about whether clicking a key fob to find a car is a search. I summarize it thus: “No, it isn’t.”
I’ve also written about the excited utterance exception before, in this “how-about-a-gun-in-your-face” post: https://lnkd.in/g8cdBeHC. This MF-ing aunt seemed like a good opportunity to reinforce it.
The aunt’s call to 911 was admitted at trial, over Austin’s objection that it was hearsay, and he was convicted of various firearm offenses.
He appealed and this week the D.C. Court of Appeals (not the D.C. Circuit) affirmed the lower court. Based on her demeanor and the stressful nature of the situation, her statements made to the dispatcher satisfied the excited utterance exception.
Oh, and BTW, ShotSpotter also detected the gunfire and notified police even before the aunt could make her call to 911. It was not excited. Just working as designed.
You can read the opinion here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/pdf/2025/09/25/austin_v._united_states.pdf.