Also known as: exception to the hearsay rule · hearsay exceptions · hearsay rule exceptions · Rule 803 · Rule 804
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Rules that permit the admission of out-of-court statements otherwise barred by the prohibition on hearsay when the statements carry sufficient indicia of reliability or satisfy enumerated conditions such as the declarant's unavailability combined with a prior opportunity for cross-examination.
Evelyn Ellison was scheduled to testify at trial about a contract dispute but could not be located despite the proponent's diligent efforts to serve a subpoena. The proponent offered her prior deposition testimony taken in the same case. The court admitted the testimony because the declarant was unavailable and the deposition satisfied the requirements for the exception.
Enzo Eastwood faced criminal charges based on a formal police interrogation statement given by a witness who later fled the country. The prosecution offered the recorded statement at trial. The court excluded it because the statement was testimonial and Eastwood had never been given an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant.
Emanuel Escobar lay dying in a hospital after an assault and made a statement identifying his attacker to a nurse. The nurse was unavailable at trial despite reasonable efforts to secure her attendance. The court admitted the statement under the dying declaration exception because the declarant was unavailable.
Eva Espinosa gave a lengthy statement to police implicating herself and her associate in a fraud scheme. At the associate's trial the prosecution offered only the portions in which Eva admitted her own role. The court admitted those discrete statements but excluded the parts that merely shifted blame to the associate.
Esme Ellington made a detailed statement to her accountant about a business transaction shortly before her death. The statement was not covered by any enumerated exception but carried strong guarantees of trustworthiness and was more probative than other available evidence. The court admitted the statement under the residual exception.
Erika Echevarria and an associate planned a scheme to defraud investors. During the ongoing conspiracy the associate told a third party that Erika had approved the false representations. The court admitted the statement against Erika because it was made in furtherance of the conspiracy.
A federal district court indictment charged that petitioner and a woman defendant had induced and persuaded another woman to go on October 20, 1941, from New York City to Miami, Florida, for the purpose of prostitution, transported or caused her to be transported for that purpose, and conspired to commit those offenses. Tried alone, the petitioner was convicted on all three counts of the indictment. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The challenged testimony was elicited by the Government from its complaining witness and narrated a purported conversation between the complaining witness and the woman defendant more than a month and a half after October 20, 1941. The woman defendant asked the complaining witness if she had talked yet, advised her not to until they got a lawyer, to be very careful what she said, and stated that it would be better for the two girls to take the blame than the petitioner because he could not stand it. At the time the conversation took place in December 1941, the trip to Florida had been made, the complaining witness had left Florida, returned to New York, and resumed her residence there. The petitioner, the woman defendant, and the complaining witness had been arrested. The Florida grand jury failed to indict and the cases there were closed without prosecution in February 1942. The New York indictments were not returned until January 1943. Petitioner was tried four times with the following results: mistrial; conviction; mistrial; conviction with recommendation for leniency. The record of the trial covers more than 800 pages.
Unavailability permits admission under Rule 804(b) exceptions only when the proponent has been unable by reasonable means to procure the declarant's attendance or testimony. The rule excludes situations in which the proponent wrongfully caused the unavailability.
Supporting sources
…134 (1999) (plurality opinion) ("[A]ccomplices' confessions that inculpate a criminal defendant are not within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule"). IV Our case law has been largely consistent with these two principles. Our leading early decision, for example, involved a deceased witness's prior trial testimony.…
…(rejecting the "assumption that the core purpose of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment is to prevent overly broad exceptions to the hearsay rule"). In Crawford , we recognized that this history could be squared with the language of the Clause, giving rise to a workable, and more accurate, interpretation of the Clause.…
…the view that the Confrontation Clause did not bar the admission of out-of-court statements that fell within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule. In Crawford , the Court held that such statements could be “admitted only where the declarant is unavailable, and only where the defendant has had a prior opportunity to cross-examine.”…
…is firmly established that where made in furtherance of the objectives of a going conspiracy, such statements are admissible as exceptions to the hearsay rule. This prerequisite to admissibility, that
…against penal interest are to be excluded under Donnelly v. United States , 228 U. S. 243, 272-277 (1913), or because, if Rule 804 (b) (4) of the proposed Federal Rules of Evidence becomes the law, such declarations would be admissible only if the declarant is unavailable at the time of the trial. Finally, we note…
The Confrontation Clause bars admission of testimonial hearsay against a criminal defendant unless the declarant is unavailable and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine. Traditional exceptions do not override this requirement when the statement is testimonial.
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Only those discrete portions of a statement that are genuinely self-inculpatory as to the declarant qualify. Portions that merely incriminate another person remain inadmissible even if embedded in an overall inculpatory narrative.
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A court may admit hearsay under the residual exception when the statement is supported by sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness after considering the totality of circumstances and is more probative on the point than other reasonably obtainable evidence.
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Yes. Statements by a conspirator are admissible against another only when made in furtherance of the conspiracy. Statements made after the conspiracy has ended or merely to conceal it do not qualify.
Supporting sources