White v. State

Ruffin, Presiding Judge.

A jury found Joseph Alexander White guilty of simple battery and obstruction of a law enforcement officer. White appeals, arguing that the trial court erred in admitting certain hearsay evidence as part of the res gestae exception. For reasons that follow, we affirm.

Res gestae — that grand octopus of the law, which stretches its clinging tentacles to anything and everything a party says during the commission of an act, or so near thereto — has been both a reliable and unreliable exception to the hearsay rule. In the instant case, we must examine the underlying facts…