Nature of the Case
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Facts
A man forced his way into Clara B.'s apartment in the Bronx and raped and sodomized her at gunpoint. A man sexually abused and attempted to rape Elizabeth G. at knifepoint in her apartment, also in the Bronx. Faye Lopez--the daughter of one of Ms. B.'s neighbors--testified that two weeks after Ms. B. was attacked, she was at her mother's apartment. She and her mother saw and heard a man knocking at Ms. B.'s door. The man was asking for 'Cindy', the fake name which Clara B. testified she had given the rapist. When no one answered, the man left and got into a car. Ms. Lopez testified that she saw the license plate number, wrote it down 'with [her] mother', and then called the police and gave them the number. The mother testified that it was she who got the plate number while her daughter was calling the police. Ms. Lopez tried unsuccessfully to reach Detective Connelly at the Bronx precinct. She talked instead to Detective Valentin who took the message, including the number of the license plate. The next day, Detective Connelly received the phone message containing the license number '567-TBP'. A computer check revealed that a vehicle with a similar plate number '5967-TBP' was registered to D. Two days later--linked to the crime scene as the owner of the car--D was arrested. Detective Thomas Connelly arrested D and each victim identified him as her attacker at the police station in separate lineups. A Grand Jury subsequently indicted D for these and other crimes. At trial, each complainant again identified D and the prosecution adduced other evidence linking him to the scene of each crime. Ms. Lopez had lost the piece of paper on which she had written the license plate information. She could not remember it. She testified, however, that to the best of her recollection, the license plate number she gave to Detective Valentin was the one she saw on the car. Detective Valentin testified that he recognized the message to be in his handwriting. He could not recall taking the message or writing it down. He stated, however, that it was his habit to take messages as accurately as he possibly could. The trial court admitted the memorandum containing the license information under the hearsay exception for a past recollection recorded. D objected. D testified and denied any involvement in either crime. After defendant was found guilty but before sentencing he pleaded guilty to other rapes and attempted rape charges with the understanding that the sentences for these charges would be concurrent with and no longer than the sentences to be imposed for the trial convictions. The Appellate Division affirmed the convictions, holding that a phone message with the license plate number was admissible as a past recollection recorded because the observer and transcriber each testified 'regarding the accuracy of their respective roles.'
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