Examples of Hearsay
It's hearsay to make a claim about what you were told by another person. For example, it isn't appropriate for a witness to testify about something he or she heard as office gossip about a coworker. For instance, if you heard a rumor from a coworker that your boss was unfaithful to his wife but have no evidence about it, you can't then testify in his divorce proceedings that he was unfaithful. You didn't observe him being unfaithful and he didn't tell you he was cheating, so you have no direct knowledge of the affair.
For a second example, imagine that you were a witness to a fight in a large, crowded bar over the weekend. Earlier in the night, you overheard two people arguing in the bathroom. This overheard argument would be hearsay if you testified about it in court.
Exceptions to the Hearsay Rule
In the U.S., courts must follow the Federal Rules of Evidence, which are formal procedures for trial that govern how evidence must be submitted. These provide certain exceptions to the hearsay rule, or times when it may be appropriate to allow someone to testify about what was stated outside of court. Here are a few important exceptions:
- Present sense impression - This is when a person can testify about what they can observe while it's happening or immediately after.
- Dying declaration - As a person is dying, a statement about how or why they are dying is admissible after their death. For example, if a dying person says the name of his or her murderer, a witness to that statement can testify about what was heard.
- Excited utterance - This happens if you make a statement out of surprise, such as blurting out an admission of guilt during a police interrogation, and that statement is seen as still admissible (although in this case, the police will require that you make a statement before witness, which is signed as your confession afterward).
- Business records - In this, documents that are made by a business can be admissible if it's possible to identify clearly who had it and how it was stored to assure the court that it wasn't altered or tampered with.
- Former testimony - Here, statements from trial can be admissible in a second trial on the same issue if the witness can be cross-examined again or if the witness isn't able to testify a second time. For example, a victim may give a statement for his deposition before trial but die before the case reaches court, so the original statement can be admitted.
Lesson Summary
All right, let's now take a moment to go through everything we just learned. As we learned, hearsay is a statement heard outside of court, that you didn't directly observe, and which can't be repeated at trial. Attorneys will often object to hearsay by a witness because it can't be verified as truthful.
There are exceptions to the hearsay rule that allow the statement to be included, with these exceptions being determined by the Federal Rules of Evidence, which are formal procedures for trial that govern how evidence must be submitted. The examples of the exceptions we looked at included the following:
- Present sense impression - Which happens when a person can testify about what they can observe while it's happening or immediately after.
- Dying declaration - As a person is dying, a statement about how or why they are dying is admissible after their death.
- Excited utterance - Which happens if you make a statement out of surprise and that statement is seen as still admissible.
- Business records - In which documents that are made by a business become admissible if it's possible to identify clearly who had it and how it was stored to assure the court that it wasn't altered or tampered with.
- Former testimony - In which statements from trial become admissible in a second trial on the same issue if the witness can be cross-examined again or if the witness isn't able to testify a second time.
