MBE Evidence Practice Exam

Present sense impressions describe what a person perceives or describes as the event is happening or immediately after. Here, the bystander states what he just observed—someone trying to take something and having a gun—essentially at the moment of perception or right after. The statement conveys the event in real time, not a delayed reflection, and the fact that another officer repeats it doesn’t remove that immediacy. This exception applies regardless of whether the declarant is available, so availability isn’t required. It’s not a dying declaration, which hinges on an expectation of imminent death, nor is it necessarily an excited utterance, which focuses on a declarant’s own emotional stress about the event. So these statements fit the present sense impression exception.