§ 90.803(2), Fla. Stat. — Excited Utterance
Part of § 90.803 — Hearsay Exceptions (Declarant Availability Immaterial).
Plain English
The excited utterance is hearsay’s most famous exception. The theory is human nature: when something shocking happens — a crash, an attack, a fall — and a person blurts out what they just saw while still in the grip of that stress, they don’t have the time or composure to invent a story. So the law treats the statement as trustworthy. Two things must be true: a startling event or condition, and a statement made while the speaker was still under the stress of excitement it caused. There’s no rigid stopwatch — what matters is whether the speaker was still emotionally swept up, not how many minutes ticked by.
From the Courtroom
The excited-utterance fight is almost always about timing and stress. The defense says, “It was twenty minutes later — she’d calmed down, she had time to think.” The plaintiff answers, “She was still shaking and crying; the stress hadn’t broken.” Whether the statement comes in often turns on one witness describing the speaker’s demeanor in that moment.
Key Points & Authority
- § 90.803(2), Fla. Stat. — Requires a startling event and a statement made while still under the stress of excitement it caused.
- No fixed time limit: the question is the declarant’s continuing emotional state, not the precise interval; contrast with the narrower “spontaneous statement” in § 90.803(1), which must be roughly contemporaneous with perceiving the event.
- Federal parallel: Fed. R. Evid. 803(2) states the same exception.
Federal Parallel
The federal counterpart is Fed. R. Evid. 803(2) — a statement relating to a startling event made while under the stress of excitement it caused.
About this rule walkthrough
Part of The Evidence Code, hosted by John M. Phillips — Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer, Court TV analyst, admitted in 8 states + 9 federal districts + SCOTUS.
Free consultation: (904) 444-4444 · About John Phillips
Educational only — not legal advice.
Rule Text (verbatim from the Florida Supreme Court)
(2) EXCITED UTTERANCE.—A statement or excited utterance relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition.
Educational reference. Educational only — not legal advice.
What this rule means in plain English
The excited-utterance exception (§90.803(2)) admits a statement relating to a startling event made while the declarant was still under the stress of excitement it caused — no fixed time limit; the test is the continuing emotional state.