Question

1. What is the relationship between the history of the hearsay rule and the history of the trial by jury?

2. What is the rationale for allowing some confessions into evidence even though the confessions are hearsay? Do you believe such evidence should be heard? If so, why? If not, why? Explain.

Answer 1

Solution:
1.

As we know;

The hearsay rule and the trial by jury both arise out of the 6th Amendment, which states:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the

state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously

ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, to be confronted with the

witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor and to have the assistance

of counsel for his defense .i.e,This 6th Amendment protection is applied against state criminal trials via the 14th

Amendment, but not the 7th (civil) trial right.

Hearsay is a statement by someone to a witness who, while testifying in court, repeats the statement. The

statement is hearsay only if it is offered for the truth of its contents. that is,

courts exclude hearsay evidence in trials, criminal or otherwise.

The main relation follows,

The hearsay ban aims to prevent juries from considering secondhand information that hasn’t been subject to cross examination.

2.

Here;

Yes, such evidence can be heard but there is not hard and fast rule to rely the arguments on them per se.

as these evidence is used in place of lack of it in the absent of the witness or the party responsible as

hearsay is testimony or documents quoting people who are not present in court, and hearsay evidence is

inadmissible for lack of a firsthand witness,When the person being quoted is not present, establishing credibility

becomes impossible, as does cross examination.

There can be many exceptions to that some of them are as follows:

1.Excited Utterance

2.Unavailiability of response

3.Statements against Interest

4.Matter of Record