State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A21-1026

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Christopher Lee Rogers,
Appellant.

Filed September 19, 2022
Affirmed
Cochran, Judge

Becker County District Court
File No. 03-CR-20-2064

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Brian W. McDonald, Becker County Attorney, Detroit Lakes, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Davi E. Axelson, Assistant Public
Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Bratvold, Presiding Judge; Cochran , Judge; and
Wheelock, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
COCHRAN, Judge
In this direct appeal, appellant challenges his convictions of second-degree and
fifth-degree assault. He argues that the district court abused its discretion by admitting an
out-of-court statement made by the victim and recorded on video into evidence under the
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excited-utterance exception to the general rule prohibiting the admission of hearsay. In a
pro se supplemental brief, appellant also argues that the district court “violated” Minn. R.
Evid. 801(d)(1) by admitting the video and related testimony into evidence. Because we
conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the video of the
victim’s prior statement and related testimony into evidence, we affirm.
FACTS
Early in the evening on October 18, 2020, two individuals, R.R. and B.S., went to
the trailer house of another individual. B.S. drove and R.R. rode in the passenger seat.
When they reached the house, B.S. stopped the car in the driveway. There were two or
three people standing outside the house. After the vehicle stopped and while R.R. was still
sitting in the car with his head turned toward the backseat, someone “swung open” R.R.’s
passenger-side door. R.R. “spun around” and “something hit [him]” twice in the face,
“square on the nose and just under [his] right eye.” He told B.S., “[L]et’s get out of here.”
She backed up the vehicle, and they left the property. B.S. drove R.R. home, which took
about ten minutes. After R.R. returned home, R.R.’s girlfriend called 911. She made the
call at 7:37 p.m. About ten minutes later, the first of two police officers arrived at R.R.’s
residence. When the officer asked R.R. who had assaulted him, he told the officer that it
was appellant Christopher Rogers. This exchange was recorded by the officer’s body-worn
camera. The two responding officers arrested Rogers later that night.
Respondent State of Minnesota charged Rogers with second-degree assault with a
dangerous weapon, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.222, subd. 1 (2020). The complaint
alleged that Rogers hit a known victim in the face with a large knife, causing him to bleed
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from a cut below his right eye. The state later filed an amended complaint that added a
second charge of felony fifth- degree assault, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.224,
subd. 4(b) (2020).
Before the case proceeded to a jury trial, Rogers filed a motion in limine seeking an
order prohibiting the state from introducing any out-of-court statement made by the alleged
victim either through law enforcement testimony or through the admission of body-worn
camera video captured by law enforcement. The state filed an opposing motion seeking an
order allowing the state to introduce evidence, through testimony and/or body-worn camera
video, of the victim’s prior statement to law enforcement.
At a pretrial hearing, the district court heard arguments from the parties on the
admissibility of the body-worn camera video and related testimony from the responding
officers. The parties agreed that if the victim’s testimony at trial turned out to be consistent
with his identification of Rogers as his assailant in the video, then the video could be
admitted as a record of a prior consistent statement under Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(B ).
But if the victim’s testimony at trial turned out to be inconsistent with his earlier statement,
the parties disagreed as to whether the video would be admissible. The state argued that
the video should be admitted under the excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule .
Rogers contended that the excited-utterance exception did not apply.
The district court filed a written order addressing the parties’ motions. The district
court ruled that the state could introduce the body-worn camera video at trial after the
victim testified in open court subject to cross-examination if the victim’s trial testimony
turned out to be consistent with his prior statement. In the alternative, if the victim’s trial
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testimony turned out to be inconsistent with his prior statement, the district court concluded
that the prior statement was admissible under Minn. R. Evid. 803(2), the excited-utterance
exception to the hearsay rule. The district court concluded that the excited-utterance
exception applied because the prior statement related to a startling event, the statement was
given shortly after the alleged incident, and the victim’s voice appeared to the district court
“to be distressed from the alleged incident.”
At trial, the victim’s testimony was inconsistent with his prior statement.
Specifically, R.R. testified that Rogers was not his assailant. He testified that he saw the
person who hit him but did not recognize that person. He acknowledged that he initially
told the responding officer that Rogers was the person who assaulted him, but he claimed
that this was a false identification and that he did not name Rogers based on his own
observation. Instead, he testified that, on the drive back home, B.S. told him that Rogers
had hit him. R.R. further testified that Rogers is his girlfriend’s cousin and that he and
Rogers have known each other for about 15 years.
The prosecution then introduced the officer’s body-worn camera video of R.R.
telling law enforcement that Rogers had assaulted him, recorded on the day the incident
occurred. The video captured the following exchange:
OFFICER: Who got stabbed?
R.R.: Me.
O: Are you okay?
. . . .
R: Yeah. He hit me with something first, and then he—
O: Who was it?
R: Christopher Rogers . . . my girlfriend’s cousin.
. . . .
O: What happened? Where’d he go?
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. . . .
R: I didn’t even see him coming. I was in the car, had the
seatbelt on. And the passenger’s door opened up and he said
[unintelligible] something to do with Uncle Dale’s lockbox.
And I didn’t even realize it was Chris until he hit me. And he
hit me and I felt the blood come out of my face and then he hit
me again and I knew he had something in his hand, something
hard. And then he’s standing at the passenger’s door . . . with
a big blade in his hand and he said “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you
right now right here.”

When asked if he recalled the exchange, R.R. said “[n]ot really. I was obviously
intoxicated slightly.” R.R. testified that he believed his memory was affected because he
had been drinking before he went to the trailer house with B.S. He acknowledged that he
did “[n]ot especially” want to testify and agreed with the prosecutor that Rogers “is
essentially [his] family.” He also testified that he “didn’t realize who [he] was implicating
at the time” because he knew Rogers under a different last name.
In contrast to R.R.’s testimony, B.S. testified at trial that Rogers was the person who
assaulted R.R. She testified that Rogers came up to the car, opened the passenger-s ide
door, and started yelling at R.R., who remained seated with his seatbelt on. S he further
testified that, although she looked away at the moment of impact, she was certain that
Rogers hit R.R. And she told law enforcement on the day of the incident that Rogers was
the assailant.
The two officers who responded to the 911 call each testified about the night’s
events. The first officer to respond testified that he questioned R.R. about the assault and
took photographs of the wound on his face. The second officer, who arrived after the first
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officer had interviewed R.R., testified that he assisted the first officer with the rest of the
investigation. The state called the officers to testify before calling R.R. to the stand.
The jury found Rogers guilty of both second- degree and fifth-degree assault. The
district court sentenced Rogers only on the second-degree assault conviction because the
two convictions resulted from the same behavioral incident.
Rogers appeals.
DECISION
Rogers challenges his assault convictions and argues that he is entitled to a new trial
because the district court abused its discretion by admitting into evidence the body-worn
camera video that captured the victim’s out-of -court statement implicating Rogers under
the excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule. In a pro se supplemental brief, Rogers
also argues that the district court’s admission of the video and related testimony from the
responding officers “violated Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1).”
We review a district court’s evidentiary rulings, including a determination that a
statement meets the requirements of a hearsay exception, for an abuse of discretion.
State v. Hallmark, 927 N.W.2d 281, 291 (Minn. 2019); Holt v. State, 772 N.W.2d 470, 483
(Minn. 2009). “A district court abuses its discretion when its decision is based on an
erroneous view of the law or is against logic and the facts in the record.” Hallmark,
927 N.W.2d at 291 (quotation omitted). We will not set aside a district court’s factual
findings unless they are clearly erroneous. State v. Prtine, 784 N.W.2d 303, 312
(Minn. 2010). Findings of fact are clearly erroneous if, based on the entire record, “we are
7
left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake occurred.” State v. Andersen,
784 N.W.2d 320, 334 (Minn. 2010).
I. The district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the victim’s out-of-
court statement implicating Rogers, which was recorded by a responding
officer, under the excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule.

The Minnesota Rules of Evidence generally exclude as hearsay any statement made
out of court and offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Minn. R. Evid. 801(c),
802. But certain exceptions allow hearsay to be admitted based on other indicia of
reliability. See Minn. R. Evid. 803, 804. One such exception is for excited utterances.
Minn. R. Evid. 803(2). An “excited utterance” is “[a] statement relating to a startling event
or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the
event or condition.” Id.
To be admissible as an excited utterance, a statement must meet three
requirements: (1) “there must be a startling event or condition,” (2) “the statement must
relate to the startling event or condition,” and (3) “the declarant must be under a sufficient
aura of excitement caused by the event or condition to insure the trustworthiness of the
statement.” State v. Daniels, 380 N.W.2d 777, 782 (Minn. 1986) (quoting Minn. R.
Evid. 803(2) cmt. ). “ As the time lapse between the startling event and subsequent
statement increases[,] so does the possibility for reflection and conscious fabrication,” but
there are “no fixed guidelines” with respect to timing. Id. (quoting Minn. R. Evid. 803(2)
cmt.); see also State v. Hogetvedt, 623 N.W.2d 909, 913 (Minn. App. 2001) (“The lapse of
time between the startling event and the out-of- court statement is not always
determinative.”), rev. denied (Minn. May 29, 2001). Rather, to determine whether a
8
statement is admissible as an excited utterance, the district court “must consider all relevant
factors including the length of time elapsed, the nature of the event, the physical condition
of the declarant, [and] any possible motive to falsify.” Minn. R. Evid. 803(2) cmt.
(emphasis added).
Here, the district court concluded that R.R.’s out-of-court statement identifying
Rogers as his assailant, captured in the body -worn camera video, was admissible as an
excited utterance. The district court based this determination on several findings. First,
“[t]he recorded statement related to a startling event.” Second, the statement “was given
shortly after the alleged incident,” as evidenced by the fact that the victim’s wound was
still bleeding when law enforcement responded to the 911 call. Third, the victim’s voice
appeared to be “distressed from the alleged incident.” And finally, “the alleged victim did
not have a motive to falsify his statement.”
Rogers argues that the district court abused its discretion in two ways when it
determined that R.R.’s out-of-court statement, recorded by the officer’s body-worn camera,
met the criteria for an “excited utterance.” First, he argues that the district court abused its
discretion by admitting R.R.’s statement under the excited-utterance exception because too
much time elapsed between the startling event and R.R.’s statement for the statement to
qualify as an excited utterance. Second, Rogers argues that the district court clearly erred
by finding that R.R.’s voice appeared to be “distressed from the alleged incident.” We are
not persuaded by either argument.
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Length of Time Elapsed
Neither the caselaw nor the record supports Rogers’s argument that too much time
elapsed between the startling event and the statement for the excited -utterance exception
to apply. As Rogers acknowledges, there are no fixed guidelines with respect to timing
when determining whether a declarant made a statement under a “sufficient aura of
excitement.” Daniels, 380 N.W.2d at 782. The time elapsed between a startling event and
a subsequent statement is therefore not always determinative of an excited-utterance
analysis. Id. at 783; Hogetvedt, 623 N.W.2d at 913. The supreme court has affirmed the
admission of statements made up to 90 minutes after a startling event occurred where the
evidence established a sufficient basis for the statement’s trustworthiness.
State v. Berrisford, 361 N.W.2d 846, 850 (Minn. 1985) (concluding that a witness
statement made 90 minutes after a startling event was an excited utterance based on
evidence that the declarant remained “unnerved”).
Here, the district court found that R.R. made the statement at issue “shortly” after
the assault. The record supports this finding. R.R. and B.S. both testified that they left the
trailer house immediately after the assault occurred, arriving at R.R.’s home ten minutes
later at most. R.R.’s girlfriend then called 911, and the first of two police officers arrived
at R.R.’s home and heard his account of the incident another ten minutes after receiving
the call. The first officer to respond testified at trial that R.R.’s girlfriend must have called
soon after the assault occurred because the cut on R.R.’s face was still bleeding when the
officer arrived. And as R.R. “was dabbing with [a] napkin, there was still fresh blood
coming off of his wound onto the napkin.” The second officer who investigated the
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incident also testified that R.R.’s injury looked recent, though the officer acknowledged on
cross-examination that he did not know when exactly the incident occurred. This evidence
supports the district court’s finding that a fairly short period of time —though a minimum
of 20 minutes—elapsed between the assault and R.R.’s statement to the first responding
officer.1
Because caselaw establishes that there are “no fixed guidelines” with respect to
timing and the record supports the district court’s determination that the time elapsed
between the assault and the statement made to the first responding officer was fairly short,
we conclude that Rogers’s timing argument does not warrant reversal.
Stress of Excitement Caused by Startling Event
Rogers next argues that the district court clearly erred by finding that R.R.’s voice
appeared to be “distressed from the alleged incident.” This finding supported the district
court’s implicit determination that R.R. was still under the stress of excitement caused by
the assault at the time he made the statement to the responding officer. We will not set
aside a district court’s factual findings unless they are clearly erroneous—leaving us with
the “definite and firm conviction that a mistake occurred.” Prtine, 784 N.W.2d at 312;
Andersen, 784 N.W.2d at 334.
We discern no clear error in the district court’s finding that R.R.’s voice appeared
to be “distressed.” As the district court noted, the body-worn camera video shows R.R.

1 Rogers asserts that 45 minutes passed between the assault and R.R.’s statement to police
but does not provide record support for this assertion, referring only to an unsupported
argument made by the state’s attorney at the motion hearing.
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appearing rattled and speaking quickly in an anxious tone. The first officer who responded
to the 911 call testified that R.R. was “in distress” and “very excited” when the officer first
interviewed him. The second officer to arrive also testified that R.R. appeared “panicked”
and “in distress.” B.S.’s corroborating testimony that it was Rogers who assaulted R.R.
further suggests that the recorded statement is trustworthy. See Berrisford, 361 N.W.2d at
850 (noting that corroborating evidence may provide “circumstantial guarantees of
trustworthiness” when assessing whether a statement qualifies as an excited utterance).
In addition, we reject Rogers’s assertion that R.R.’s statement to the first responding
officer was comparable to the one at issue in State v. Page, 386 N.W.2d 330, 334 (Minn.
App. 1986), rev. denied (Minn. June 30, 1986). In Page, this court concluded that the
district court abused its discretion by admitting a statement made by a witness to law
enforcement as an excited utterance when the only evidence of the declarant’s emotional
state was an officer’s testimony that the declarant had “calmed down” before giving the
officer any information. 386 N.W.2d at 334. Here, by contrast, the record evidence
includes a video of the victim’s emotional state that the district court independently
assessed, as well as the testimony of the responding officers that R.R. was still “in distress”
when he made the statement recorded by the first officer’s body-worn camera.
In sum, we conclude that the district court did not clearly err by finding that R.R.’s
voice appeared to be “distressed from the alleged incident” in the video. Because this
finding formed the basis for the district court’s implicit determination that R.R. was still
under the stress of excitement caused by the assault at the time he made the statement to
the officer, we further conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by
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admitting the video under the excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule. Rogers has
failed to meet his burden to demonstrate an abuse of discretion based on the district court’s
application of Minn. R. Evid. 803(2).
II. Rogers’s pro se arguments based on Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1) are unavailing.
In a supplemental pro se brief, Rogers raises two arguments based on Minn. R. Evid.
801(d)(1). Rule 801(d)(1) provides that, when a declarant testifies at trial and is subject to
cross-examination, certain prior out-of-court statements by the declarant are not hearsay
and, therefore, not subject to hearsay rules. Specifically, if a declarant’s prior statement is
inconsistent with the declarant’s testimony at trial and was given under oath, the prior
statement is not hearsay. Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(A). If a declarant’s prior statement is
consistent with the declarant’s testimony at trial, the prior statement is not hearsay if it is
“helpful to the trier of fact in evaluating the declarant’s credibility as a witness.” Minn. R.
Evid. 801(d)(1)(B).
Rogers argues that the district court “violated Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)” by
(1) admitting the body -worn camera video and (2) allowing the responding officers “to
testify about their conversations with the victim concerning the alleged assault.”
Rogers argues that the district court erred by admitting the body-worn camera video
because R.R.’s statement in the video was not made under oath and therefore could not be
admitted under Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(A) as a prior inconsistent statement. Rogers is
correct that R.R.’s prior inconsistent statement recorded in the body- worn camera video
was not admissible under Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(A) because the prior statement was not
given under oath as required by the rule. But the district court did not admit the statement
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as nonhearsay under Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(A). Instead, as discussed above, the district
court admitted the statement under Minn. R. Evid. 803(2), the excited-utterance exception
to the hearsay rule. Accordingly, Rogers’s pro se argument regarding the admission of the
video is not persuasive.
Rogers also argues that the district court violated rule 801(d)(1) by admitting
testimony of the responding officers “about their conversations with [R.R.] concerning the
alleged assault.” Rogers argues that “the whole purpose of [Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)] was
flouted” because the responding officers testified at trial about R.R.’s prior statement
before R.R. himself testified.
This argument is unavailing because the responding officers’ testimony does not
appear to have “violated Minn. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)” as Rogers contends. While the
responding officers did testify before R.R., the first one testified on direct examination only
that he “[came] to suspect” Rogers as the assailant without explaining the source of that
suspicion. It was not until defense counsel cross-examined the first responding officer that
any potential inconsistency between R.R.’s prior identification of Rogers and his expected
trial testimony was raised. Counsel for the defense ask ed the officer if R.R. had later
changed his story. At that point, the state objected on hearsay grounds because R.R. had
not yet testified. The district court sustained the objection. With regard to the second
officer, R.R.’s initial identification of Rogers was mentioned only once on redirect
examination, when the prosecutor asked the officer why he went to Rogers’s house on the
night of the incident. The officer answered that “[R.R.] had indicated that [Rogers] was
the person . . . who had assaulted him.” The defense did not object to this exchange. And
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this exchange does not implicate hearsay because it was not offered to prove the truth of
the matter asserted but rather to explain why the officers later went to Rogers’s house. See
Minn. R. Evid. 801(c) (defining hearsay in relevant part as a statement offered to prove the
truth of the matter asserted).
Finally, even if the admission of the officers’ testimony had constituted error by the
district court, the admission would not require reversal because the video of R.R.’s
incriminating statements was properly admitted later as an excited utterance. As a result,
the admission of the officers’ testimony was unlikely to have substantially affected the
jury’s verdict. See State v. Smith, 825 N.W.2d 131, 138 (Minn. App. 2012) (reviewing
unobjected-to admission of a police officer’s testimony about a victim’s prior out-of-court
statement for plain error that affects a defendant’s substantial rights); State v. Strommen,
648 N.W.2d 681, 688 (Minn. 2002) (explaining that plain error affects a defendant’s
substantial rights if there is a reasonable likelihood that the error substantially affected the
verdict).
Conclusion
In sum, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion by admitting
the body-worn camera video of the victim’s statement implicating Rogers because the
video was properly admitted under the excited-utterance exception to the hearsay rule. We
further conclude that Rogers’s additional pro se arguments do not warrant reversal.
Affirmed.