Hearsay in United States law

Hearsay is testimony from a witness who is reciting an out-of-court statement that is being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
The Federal Rules of Evidence prohibit introducing hearsay statements during applicable federal court proceedings, unless one of nearly thirty exemptions or exceptions applies. The Federal Rules of Evidence define hearsay as:
The "declarant" is the person who makes the out-of-court statement..
The Federal Rules define a "statement" as "a person’s oral assertion, written assertion, or nonverbal conduct, if the person intended it as an assertion".. The Supreme Court has further clarified that a "statement" refers to "a single declaration or remark, rather than a report or narrative". Thus, a trial court must separately analyze each individual statement, "sentence-by-sentence", rather than analyzing the narrative as whole for hearsay content or exceptions.
"The truth of the matter asserted" means the statement itself is being used as evidence to prove the substance of that statement. For example, if a witness says, "Margot told me she loved Matt" to prove that Margot did in fact love Matt, the witness's statement is hearsay. Thus, the reason a party offers a statement is central to determining whether it qualifies as excludable hearsay.
If a statement is being used to prove something other than the truth of what the statement asserts, it is not inadmissible because of the hearsay rule. A good example is the U.S. Supreme Court case of Tennessee v. Street, in which a co-defendant's confession was properly admitted against the defendant—not for the hearsay purpose of directly proving that both men jointly committed a robbery and murder—but for the nonhearsay purpose of rebutting the defendant's claim that his own confession was elicited through the sheriff's coercive tactic of reading his co-defendant's confession to him.
In cases where a statement is being offered for a purpose other than the truth of what it asserts, trial judges have discretion to give the jury a limiting instruction, mandating the jury consider the evidence only for its intended, non-hearsay purpose.
Although the Federal Rules of Evidence govern federal proceedings only, 38 states have adopted the Uniform Rules of Evidence, which closely track the Federal Rules.

Rationale for excluding hearsay

The rule excluding hearsay arises from a concern regarding the statement's reliability. Courts have four principal concerns with the reliability of witness statements: the witness may be lying, the witness may have misunderstood the situation, the witness's memory may be wrong, and the witness's perception was inaccurate. Despite these risks, courts allow testimonial evidence because of in-court safeguards "calculated to discover and expose in detail its possible weaknesses, and thus to enable the tribunal to estimate it at no more than its actual value".
These three safeguards reveal possible weaknesses in a statement:

Witnesses must testify under oath
Witnesses must be subject to cross-examination
Witnesses must be present in court for the fact-finder to assess their demeanor and credibility

Thus, courts prohibit hearsay because of the three missing safeguards intended to assuage reliability concerns of testimonial statements.
In the above example, the witness's statement "Margot told me she loves Matt" is unreliable because Margot is not under oath, she is not subject to cross-examination, and she is not present in court for the fact-finder to assess her credibility. The statement is just too unreliable to be permitted as evidence in court.

Non-hearsay statements

Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, a statement that meets one of the two following conditions is considered not hearsay, and thus admissible. )

1. Prior statement of a witness

A prior statement by a witness is not hearsay if:
For these circumstances to apply, a witness must be presently testifying in the proceeding and available for cross-examination.
If the prior statement is inconsistent with the current statement, the prior statement may be used both for impeachment and substantively. Similarly, prior consistent statements being used to rebut an attack on the declarant's credibility, e.g. that the declarant is lying or biased, can be used for rehabilitation and substantively. The drafters of this section of the rules "felt that the jury should not be required to do mental gymnastics here—the jurors should not be asked to separate credibility use from substantive use."
The identification exemption applies, for example, where a witness previously identified someone but cannot remember that identification while testifying during trial. In United States Supreme Court Case United States v. Owens, 484 U.S. 554, the Court held a victim's previous identification of the defendant as his assailant was admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 801, despite memory problems like being unable to remember seeing his attacker. The rationale of this rule is that prior identifications are more reliable because they happened closer in time to the event than to the court proceeding, and thus are more likely to be accurate than an identification in court.

2. Opposing party's statement

Any statement made by one party is admissible as non-hearsay if offered by their opposing party. In civil cases, the plaintiff can introduce all statements made by the defense, and the defense can enter all statements made by the plaintiff into evidence.
The Rules list five circumstances in which an opposing party's statement is admissible as non-hearsay:
Bootstrapping. The Rules further explain that the offered statement "does not by itself establish the declarant's authority under ; the existence or scope of the relationship under ; or the existence of the conspiracy or participation in it under." This requires the offering party to introduce some independent, corroborative evidence proving the circumstances of C, D, or E are met. The trial judge then decides, by a preponderance of the evidence, whether these conditions have been proven by evaluating the statement itself and the independent evidence.
Rationale. Unlike other hearsay rules which are concerned principally with reliability, this rule extends common law ideals of adversarial fairness.

Exceptions to the hearsay rule

Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, certain statements that qualify as hearsay are nevertheless admissible as exceptions to the hearsay exclusion rule. Some of these exceptions apply regardless of the declarant's availability to testify in court. See F.R.E. 803-. Others apply only when the declarant is unavailable to testify at the trial or hearing. See F.R.E. 804.
Many of the exceptions listed below are treated more extensively in individual articles.

Exceptions where the declarant's availability is irrelevant

Excited utterances: Statements relating to startling events or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition. This is the exception that may apply to the 'police officer' scenario described below. The victim's cries of help were made under the stress of a startling event, and the victim is still under the stress of the event, as is evidenced by the victim's crying and visible shaking. An excited utterance does not have to be made at the same time of the startling event. A statement made minutes, hours or even days after the startling event can be excited utterances, so long as the declarant is still under the stress of the startling event. However, the more time that elapses between a startling event and the declarant's statement, the more the statements will be looked upon with disfavor.
Present sense impression: A statement expressing the declarant's impression of a condition existing at the time the statement was made, such as "it's hot in here" or "we're going really fast." Unlike an excited utterance, it need not be made in response to a startling event. Instead, it is admissible because it is a condition that the witness would likely have been experiencing at the same time as the declarant, and would instantly be able to corroborate.
Declarations of present state of mind : Much like a present-sense impression describes the outside world, declarant's statement to the effect of "I am angry!" or "I am Napoleon!" will be admissible to prove that the declarant was indeed angry, or did indeed believe himself to be Napoleon at that time. Used in cases where the declarant's mental state is at issue. Present-state-of-mind statements also includes statements about plans or intent, which can be used as circumstantial evidence of subsequent acts committed by the declarant. However, this exception does not apply to statements about memory or belief that are used to prove the fact remembered, unless the memory/belief is about the validity of terms in the declarant's will.
Statement made for medical diagnosis or treatment: Another exception is statements made in the course of medical treatment, i.e., statements made by a patient to a medical professional to help in diagnosis and treatment. However, the statement must be reasonably related to the treatment, such as medical history, past or present symptoms or sensations, their inception, or their general cause.
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 records are introduced into evidence. Depending on which jurisdiction the case is in, either the records custodian or someone with knowledge of the records must lay a foundation for the records, however. The use of police records, especially as substantive evidence against the accused in a criminal trial, is severely restricted under the Business Records exception. Typically, only generalized evidence about police procedure is admissible under this exception, and not facts about a specific case. For example, John is stopped for speeding 70 miles per hour in a 50-mile-per-hour zone. The officer, who determined John's speed with radar, records the speed in an incident report. He also calibrates and runs a diagnostic on his radar every day prior to beginning his shift. He records this in a log. At trial, the report itself would not be admissible as it pertained to the facts of the case. However, the officer's daily log in which he records his calibration and the daily diagnostics of his radar unit would be admissible under the business records exception.
Prior inconsistent statements: Many states have departed from the approach of the federal rules with respect to inconsistent statements. Under current law in these jurisdictions, a prior inconsistent statement made by a witness is admissible as substantive evidence provided the declarant signed the statement.
Other exceptions, declarant's availability immaterial: In the United 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 admissible hearsay evidence.