## Facts

- David Miller stopped on Interstate 95 near Pooler, Georgia to help motorist Charles Shideler repair a pickup truck.
- While Miller and Shideler worked near the truck’s left rear wheel, a passing tractor-trailer struck Shideler (and possibly Miller) and continued without stopping.
- Shideler died; Miller sustained serious injuries, including a broken leg.
- A witness (Linda Carper) left to seek help and called 911; shortly thereafter, an unidentified person placed a separate 911 call from a pay phone located miles from the scene.
- The unidentified caller reported that a trailer truck hit the men, stated “Crown Amusements” was written on the trailer, described the vehicles and location, and indicated it was the caller’s first opportunity to reach a phone.
- The caller was never identified and was unavailable to testify; the plaintiff sought a pretrial ruling admitting the recording and transcript of the anonymous call.

## Issues

1. Whether an anonymous 911 call describing a just-observed accident is admissible under the present sense impression exception, Fed. R. Evid. 803(1), when the declarant is unidentified and unavailable.
2. Whether the lapse of several minutes while the caller traveled to the first available phone satisfies Rule 803(1)’s requirement that the statement be made “while perceiving” the event or “immediately thereafter.”

## Decision

- The court granted the plaintiff’s motion for a pretrial admissibility determination.
- The court held the second, anonymous 911 call admissible under Fed. R. Evid. 803(1).
- The court found the call described the accident and related conditions and was made within a very short time after the event, at the first practical opportunity to report.
- The court concluded that anonymity did not bar admission because the surrounding circumstances supplied sufficient reliability for Rule 803(1).

## Legal Principles

- Under Fed. R. Evid. 803(1), a hearsay statement is admissible if it describes or explains an event or condition and is made while the declarant is perceiving it or immediately thereafter.
- “Immediately thereafter” is a flexible standard but requires substantial contemporaneity; a brief delay explained by the need to reach a phone may still satisfy Rule 803(1).
- The rationale for Rule 803(1) is that close temporal proximity reduces risks of fabrication and memory error, providing circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness.
- A declarant’s anonymity and unavailability do not categorically preclude admission under Rule 803(1) when timing and context show the statement was made promptly and based on firsthand observation.

## Conclusion

The court admitted an anonymous 911 recording as a present sense impression because it described the accident and was placed within minutes at the caller’s first opportunity, providing sufficient reliability despite the caller’s unidentified status.


Miller v. Crown Amusements, Inc., 821 F. Supp. 703 (S.D. Ga. 1993)