A good decision in a fresh-accusation case

I use the term fresh accusations to cover statements made shortly after an event asserting that someone committed a crime.  Often, though not inevitably, they are made to a police officer or 911 operator.  They are especially common in domestic-violence cases.  I believe that Davis v. Washington left the law in this area in a very unsatisfactory state.  If a court resolves that the statement was made primarily to resolve an "ongoing emergency," then it will call the statement non-testimonial.  And courts will very often seize on any facts that allow them to characterize a statement as having been made in response to an emergency.  

So State v. Tapper, a unanimous decision by the Minnesota Court of Appeals, is a welcome development in this respect, though it should be utterly unsurprising.  This was a domestic-violence case, and the statements in question were made to a responding officer after a 911 call.  But the court recognized that this particular incident had ended and that the complainant was not in immediate danger; she was outside her apartment with the officer and her ex-husband, the alleged assailant, was apparently asleep inside.  Her children were inside and she said that she would not leave them, but she did not "express fear for their safety or indicate they [had] been harmed by Tapper in the past."  She had suffered injuries – she was covered with blood and reported that her head was "messed up," but most of the conversation concerned what Tapper had done on the incident in question an on prior ones.  She was sniffling at the beginning of the conversation, wiping her eyes and nose and breathing rapidly, but soon she was able to speak calmly, and she answered the officer's questions coherently.  Some courts might have used these factors – the presence of the kids in the apartment with the alleged assailant, the complainant's injuries, and her demeanor at the beginning of the conversation – to justify a conclusion that the statement wasn't testimonial.  But it clearly was, and the Minnesota appellate court, like the trial court, recognized this.  Too bad it designated the decision as non-precedential!