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The case stemmed from the murder of a woman by her friend's boyfriend.

The victim called 911 in a panic after the boyfriend broke into her house and stabbed her 23 times. She told emergency personnel to hurry because she was afraid she was going to die and identified her attacker.

The defendant was convicted of first degree murder, partly based on testimony from the 911 dispatcher that the victim had identified him by name as her assailant.

On appeal, the defendant argued that admitting the evidence violated his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him.

He claimed that the statements to the 911 operator were testimonial and therefore their admission violated Crawford.

But the court said that the statements were admissible, both as a spontaneous utterance and as a dying declaration.

"There is no question that [the victim] made the call in 'circumstances that reasonably negated premeditation' … where she sustained twenty-three stab wounds only moments before the call and reacted to that extraordinarily startling event by dialing 911 to plead for help," the court said. "Her statements, therefore, readily fall within the spontaneous utterances exception to the hearsay rule."

Further, said the court, the statements were admissible as a dying declaration.

"In a prosecution for homicide at common law, a statement made by a declarant-victim under the belief of imminent death and who died shortly after making the statement … was admissible as an exception to the rule against hearsay," the court said. "[The victim's] statement, therefore, may properly be considered a common-law dying declaration, and was properly admitted regardless of whether it was testimonial in nature."

Finally, the court said that that the statements here were not testimonial because they were made in response to questions from law enforcement seeking to determine the safety of a volatile scene or the need for medical care.

"[The victim's] first two statements, 'Hurry up and help me' and '[Someone] just came in my house and tried to kill me' … raised the possibility that a violent (and perhaps armed) individual might still have been at the scene. It was therefore necessary for the dispatcher to determine the identity of the perpetrator and to ascertain whether the first responders would be encountering a dangerous situation," the court said.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Commonwealth v. Nesbitt, No.SJC-09824. Aug. 19, 2008. Lawyers USA No. 99310605. Click here for the full text of the opinion.