Client found not guilty of assault

My client and his wife, who reside in Virginia, were recently in Baltimore for a weekend stay.  While in town, the two, after a night that included a certain amount of alcohol consumption, had a disagreement, ultimately leading to the wife going downstairs to the lobby of the hotel they were staying in and requesting that the police be called.  The police did in fact respond, and arrested my client (the husband) for assault.

Upon interviewing both parties, I was told that the incident was overblown, was not assaultive, and primarily sprang from both husband and wife having drank too much.  The wife was insistent she did not wish to pursue charges.  I advised her she had the right, under Maryland law, to invoke spousal privilege, meaning the State could not, at least under the circumstances of this case, compel her to give testimony adverse to her husband.  The wife informed me she wished to exercise this privilege, and in fact did so.

Normally, the invocation of spousal privilege would end a case like this; however, there was one complicating factor: the employee from the hotel appeared in court and told me that the wife told her to call the police, because her husband had just broken her arm.  (In fact, the wife's arm was not broken).  This created a situation where the state could have chosen to proceed with the case, even without the wife's testimony.  Specifically, even though the statement of the non-testifying wife to a 3rd-party would normally be hearsay, and exception exists known as the excited utterance exception.  Basically, the law recognizes that when a person says something under the stress of a recent event, that normally that person did not have time to concoct or fabricate a story, thus meaning that there excited utterance is deemed trustworthy, and can be admissible, even if the speaker does not testify at trial.  Nonetheless, in this case, given my client's lack of prior record and the fact that the wife actually sustained no injury, I was able to persuade the State not to proceed under an excited utterance theory, and my client was found not guilty, since the state had no independent evidence of an assault once the wife invoked her spousal privilege.

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