During defendant's robbery trial, in his case-in-chief, he moved into evidence a 9-1-1 tape of his call to police. The trial judge admitted the evidence under two exceptions to the hearsay rule: present sense impression, N.J.R.E. 803(c)(1), and excited utterance, N.J.R.E. 803(c)(2). The judge allowed the State, in rebuttal, to introduce defendant's sanitized criminal history for impeachment purposes pursuant to N.J.R.E. 806 and gave the Model Jury Charge (Criminal), "Credibility - Prior Conviction of a Defendant," (rev. Feb. 24, 2003). The court concluded that the admission of the prior criminal history was proper, accompanied by the limiting instruction. Although defendant did not testify, the rule allows the use of impeaching material when hearsay is introduced.
