Hearsay

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Hearsay in its most general and oldest meaning is an out of court statement used to establish the facts which that statement asserts.

Hearsay is generally not admissible as evidence in common law courts, but the rules for admissibility are more relaxed in court systems based on the civil law system.

The reason for the hearsay rule is that the credibility of the person or his observations cannot be challenged by the person against whom the testimony is being proffered.

While the 'hearsay rule' is commonly thought of within the context of "who said what to whom," in fact it is much more important as to documents and electronic records. For example, many documents and entries on those documents are created by a machine or as part of a process where person who actually created the document is unknown.

While hearsay is generally inadmissible as evidence in legal proceedings such as litigation there are many exceptions, some of which apply only when the original speaker (known as the declarant) is unavailable. These include:

dying utterances and other statements under belief of impending death: often depicted in movies; the police officer asks the person on their deathbed, "Who did it" and the victim replies, "The butler did it").
admissions against interest: the declarant makes an admission, such as confessing to a crime, that goes so clearly against their own interest that a reasonable person would not make such an admission unless they believed it was true.
the business records exception: business records created during the ordinary course of business are considered reliable and can usually be brought in under this exception if the proper foundation is laid when the evidence is introduced into evidence. In this usage, business records has a very broad meaning and includes police records, or records of non-profit organizations. In the Unites States Federal Rules of Evidence, separate exceptions are made for public records, family records, and records in ancient documents of established authenticity. When regular or public records are kept, the absence of such records may also be used as admissable hearsay evidence.
excited utterances relating to startling events or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition.
prior testimony: if the testimony was given under oath and the party against whom the testimony is being proffered was present and had the opportunity to cross examine the witness at that time. Often used to enter depositionss into the court record at trial.

Also a statement is not hearsay when it is not used to prove the statement that it asserts. For example, Y screaming that X shot B, cannot be used to establish that X shot B, but can be introduced to show that Y 'thought' X shot B. Similarly, a letters from a customer complaining that an employee was rude may be introduced as evidence that customers were complaining about the employee; this is not hearsay. It is only hearsay if the letter is introduced as evidence that the employee was rude.

In some jurisdictions such as Canada the limited exceptions format to the rule have been replaced by a more general theory of exceptions to the hearsay rule that allows courts to decide when documents, testimony or other evidentiary proof can be used that might not otherwise be considered. [more can be written about this].

Today the hearsay rule has developed into a complex set of evidentiary rules of admissibility that are used to prevent various types of statements and documents from being entered into evidence in various types of court proceedings, though they may be allowed in other types of alternative dispute resolution. Generally speaking hearsay is a concept that developed in the common law legal tradition in the context of the adversarial system of decision making.

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External link

Federal Rules of Evidence, section VIII