State v. Hardy

In State v. Hardy, 339 N.C. 207, 451 S.E.2d 600 (1994), our Supreme Court held that statements from the victim's diary describing the defendant's violent conduct, which "expressed no emotion and seemed to have been written in a calm and detached manner," id. at 229, 451 S.E.2d at 613, were not admissible under Rule 803(3) because they did not constitute statements of the victim's state of mind, and merely amounted to "a recitation of facts which describe various events," id. at 228, 451 S.E.2d at 612. The notion that the result in Hardy may be expanded beyond the particular facts in that case has previously been foreclosed by this Court. As the Court stated in State v. Wilds, 133 N.C. App. 195, 515 S.E.2d 466 (1999): this case is distinguishable from Hardy in that the statements in Hardy were taken from the victim's diary and contained descriptions of assaults and threats against the victim before she died but did not reveal the victim's state of mind or contain statements of the victim's fear of defendant. Wilds, 133 N.C. App. at 205, 515 S.E.2d at 475.