Hutchison's Testimony Hearsay?

Kent WA

Description

The textbook definition of hearsay is “an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” In other words, someone says something (or writes something down), and one side in a legal dispute wants to use that statement in a trial to prove not that the statement was made (that’s usually fine), but that its substantive content is correct. Imagine I saw John Doe jaywalking and told my friend Mike. It’s not hearsay if I testify about what I saw. But it is hearsay if Mike testifies as to what I told him I saw. The default rule is that such evidence is inadmissible — because it’s unreliable; just because I said something to Mike isn’t evidence that what I said is true, whereas my testifying to what I saw firsthand is. She's not quoting what somebody else had observed. Hutchison's testimony is firsthand, her own direct observation at the time. Hearsay applies only to judicial proceedings — to contexts in which hearsay is potentially being used to formally establish someone’s legal liability. (Hence the definition’s focus on out-of-court statements.) There’s no comparable hearsay rule in the court of public opinion or, as relevant here, in congressional proceedings.