State v. Veltkamp

Summary

The Montana Supreme Court affirmed Willie Veltkamp's convictions for two counts of felony incest following a jury trial. The Court held that the narrative statements in the SANE Report were erroneously admitted under the medical-diagnosis hearsay exception (an error the State conceded) and that submitting the report to the jury during deliberations was an abuse of discretion, but that both errors were harmless because the same content was cumulative of J.V.'s trial testimony, her prior inconsistent statement repeated through the detective who witnessed the exam, and forensic DNA evidence. The April 16, 2020 text messages disclosing the abuse were properly admitted under the modern transaction rule rather than the abandoned res gestae doctrine, and were harmless in any event because J.V. and her mother both testified and were cross-examined.