Comments about ‘The hearsay rule: How it helped Roberto Miramontes Roman, who was acquitted of murder’

Prosecutorial dumbness, judicial dumbness, and best of all jury dumbness. That is the glue that holds our cherished legal system together and makes us scratch our heads. What the jury will or won't do. All three happened in the OJ case also.

As a lawyer for 25 years and law school adj. professor and judge, unless something has been left out of this story, Rule 806 (part of the Rule copied below) would have clearly allowed the evidence the State was seeking to introduce. There is no exception to excluding such evidence just because the State decided not to object. The only requirement is that the hearsay statement was admitted. In this case "Admitted" means the jury heard it, regardless of whether the State objected or decided not to object. Sorry, but it sounds like somebody made the wrong call, unless the reporter left something out of the story.

Rule Rule 806. Attacking and Supporting the Declarant’s Credibility

When a hearsay statement has been admitted in evidence, the declarant’s credibility may be attacked, and then supported, by any evidence that would be admissible for those purposes if the declarant had testified as a witness. The court may admit evidence of the declarant’s inconsistent statement or conduct, regardless of when it occurred or whether the declarant had an opportunity to explain or deny it.