## Facts

- James J. Coleman lived with Diane McCarthy in her apartment in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
- On May 3, 1971, around 6:00 a.m., Coleman woke McCarthy while waving a knife; the two argued for hours.
- Around 8:30 a.m., McCarthy telephoned her mother and said Coleman would not let her leave the apartment and was going to kill her.
- During the call, McCarthy’s mother heard Coleman yelling in the background.
- Approximately twenty minutes later, McCarthy was found in the apartment stabbed to death.
- Coleman admitted stabbing McCarthy but claimed self-defense.
- Over objection, the trial court allowed McCarthy’s mother to testify to the contents of the phone call.

## Issues

1. Whether the victim’s statements during the telephone call describing the defendant’s restraint and threats were admissible under a hearsay exception (present sense impression or related spontaneous/excited utterance doctrine).
2. Whether admitting the mother’s testimony unfairly prejudiced the defense (including the self-defense claim) so as to require a new trial.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the judgment of sentence.
- The court held the mother’s testimony recounting the victim’s telephone statements was admissible under a recognized hearsay exception tied to contemporaneous, spontaneous descriptions of ongoing events.
- The court rejected the argument that “he is going to kill me” was an inadmissible opinion; in context it described an immediate, ongoing threat.
- The court concluded the evidence’s damaging effect on self-defense did not make it inadmissible because it carried sufficient indicia of reliability.

## Legal Principles

- A statement describing an event or condition while the declarant is perceiving it (or immediately thereafter) may be admitted as hearsay when its contemporaneity and surrounding circumstances provide reliability.
- Telephone statements made during an ongoing confrontation may qualify under present sense impression or a closely related spontaneous/excited utterance exception when supported by circumstances showing immediacy (e.g., corroborating background sounds and close temporal proximity to the crime).
- Predictive phrasing about what an assailant “is going to” do may be treated as a description of an immediate threat, not merely speculation, when grounded in contemporaneous perception.

## Conclusion

The court upheld Coleman’s murder conviction because the victim’s phone statements to her mother, made during the confrontation and corroborated by background yelling and the short time to the killing, were sufficiently reliable to be admitted under a contemporaneous/spontaneous-statement hearsay exception.


Commonwealth v. Coleman, 326 A.2d 387 (Pa. 1974)