“[T]he great hearsay rule … is a fundamental rule of safety, but one overenforced and abused, — the spoiled child of the family, — proudest scion of our jury-trial rules of evidence, but so petted and indulged that it has become a nuisance and an obstruction to speedy and efficient trials.” John H. Wigmore, A Students’ Textbook of the Law of Evidence 238 (1935).
hearsay rule
hearsay rule. The rule that no assertion offered as testimony can be received unless it is or has been open to test by cross-examination or an opportunity for cross-examination, except as provided otherwise by the rules of evidence, by court rules, or by statute. • The chief reasons for the rule are that out-of-court statements amounting to hearsay are not made under oath and are not subject to cross-examination. Fed. R. Evid. 802. Rule 803 provides 23 explicit exceptions to the hearsay rule, regardless of whether the out-of-court declarant is available to testify, and Rule 804 provides five more exceptions for situations in which the declarant is unavailable to testify. [Cases: Criminal Law 419; Evidence 314–324. C.J.S. Criminal Law § 856; Evidence §§ 227–228, 234, 259–266, 268–284, 319, 505–506.]
