Are 911 Calls Admissible in New York Courts ?

In People v. Moscat, 3 Misc. 3d 739, 777 N.Y.S.2d 875 (Crim. Ct. Bronx Co. 2004), the Court determined that the victim's 911 call was admissible as an excited utterance and concluded that 911 calls were generally not testimonial. The Court found that such statements were not initiated by the police, but were made by persons seeking some sort of immediate assistance. In addition, the Court found that such statements could not be analogized to the statements taken in the 16th and 17th century by English magistrates conducting pre-trial examinations. Finally, the Court concluded that, for the most part, a person making a 911 call was not contemplating that he or she would be a witness at any resulting proceeding, and that often a person calling 911 was not contemplating appearing as a witness in a future legal proceeding, but was "usually trying simply to save her own life." Id. at 746.