Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Re: PC 422-Evidentary hearsay rule

Thanks for your posting. After the lengthy answer offered by Mr. Hobbs (which was excellent by the way), I can only add the following.

Hearsay law is the most complicated area of evidence law. In your particular situation, you should know that under the Federal Rules of Evidence, there is an exception to hearsay for the other half of a phone conversation. The theory is, if you are making statements on the phone, they are not subject to privacy, as you are allowing at least one other person to hear them.

Specific answers require specific facts in the question, so you might want to sit down with an attorney at a free consultation as well.

Thanks, and please call or email me if you need more information or if you have any questions.

Re: PC 422-Evidentary hearsay rule

I will address the hearsay issue only since other counsel have discussed the investigative aspects. The issue that you raise has nothing to do with the hearsay rule or its exceptions. It is the making of the statement itself that constitutes the crime. Hearsay is an out of court statement offered to prove the facts stated in the statement. Here, the district attorney would not be offering the statement to prove its truth but only that it was made. Therefore, there is no hearsay issue. This is not to say that there might not be some other basis to object, but rather that an objection based on hearsay will not carry the day in court.

Re: PC 422-Evidentary hearsay rule

Never having been a police officer attempting to solve a crime, I'd attempt to do the following.

1. Find out as many facts as possible.

2. Find and question any witnesses to the crime.

3. Gather up any other physical evidence.

4. Review the possible suspects that have a motive and opportunity.

Then from the facts I'd look at all the possible crimes that may have been violated by whatever acts were alleged by the witnesses and supported by the physical evidence.

Then I'd start looking for the person or persons that may have committed the acts, i.e motive and opportunity.

Once I settled on the prime suspect(s), I'd question them and then review their motive. Motive is never an element of the crime.

After putting all this together I'd write a comprehensive report, suggest a crime that may have been committed, and submit the report to my supervisor, who will review it and submit it to the D. A., maybe.

Then a Deputy D. A. will read everything in the report draft a charging document (complaint), or return the report to teh police for further investigation.

Until now the issue of heresay hasn't been a factor. The D. A. may then charge the criminal defendant and/or have the investigators on their staff or request the police to do some clean up investigation.

At this point a case is/maybe filed, and the guilty bastard is brought in.

Heresay itself is simply an evidence rule that tries to make the prosecutor find witnesses that saw something or statements by dead people or the criminal defendant themselves. Adn the rule has a myriad number of other exceptions, that are admissible.

There is not one single case on record that I'm aware of in which an appellate court over turned the conviction because the judge let in heresay inviolation of the rule.

So the heresay rule is a tool for determining the truthfulness of a statement which is balanced against the necessity to get the evidence in. A mathematical representation is reliability + necessity = 1. The greater the need the less the reliability needs to be. The best example is a dying person's declaration when his/her death is imminent, and the witness (soon to be deceased) knows it.

Way too much stuff for you to learn in one setting. However, a person has to start somewhere.