RULES OF EVIDENCE
ARTICLE VIII. HEARSAY
Rule 803. Hearsay Exceptions; Availability of Declarant Immaterial
The statements, records and documents specified in 803(1) through 803(24) are not excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness.
(1) Present Sense Impression
A statement describing or explaining an event or condition made while the declarant was perceiving the event or condition, or immediately thereafter.
(2) Excited Utterance
A statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition.
(3) Then Existing Mental, Emotional, or Physical Condition
A statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind, emotion, sensation, or physical condition (such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, and bodily health), but not including a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless it relates to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of declarant's will.
(4) Statements for Purposes of Medical Diagnosis or Treatment
Statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment and describing medical history, or past or present symptoms, pain, or sensations, or the inception or general character of the cause or external source thereof insofar as reasonably pertinent to diagnosis or treatment, regardless of to whom the statements are made, or when the statements are made, if the court, in its discretion, affirmatively finds that the proffered statements were made under circumstances indicating their trustworthiness.
(5) Recorded Recollection
A memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable the witness to testify fully and accurately, shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in his or her memory and to reflect that knowledge correctly. If admitted, the memorandum or record may be read into evidence and may be received as an exhibit unless the court, in its discretion, finds that such admission is unduly cumulative or prejudicial.
(6) Records of Regularly Conducted Activity
A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness, or by certification that complies with Rule 902(11), Rule 902(12), or a statute permitting certification, unless the source of information or the method of circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. The term "business" as used in this paragraph, includes business, institution, association, profession, occupation, and calling of every kind, whether or not conducted for profit.
(7) Absence of Entry in Records Kept in Accordance With the Provisions of Rule 803(6)
Evidence that a matter is not included in the memoranda, reports, records, or data compilations, in any form, kept in accordance with the provisions of Rule 803(6), to prove the nonoccurrence or nonexistence of the matter, if the matter was of the kind of which a memorandum, report, record, or data compilation was regularly made and preserved, unless the sources of information of other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness.
(8) Public Records and Reports
Records, reports, statements, or data compilations, in any form, of public offices or agencies, setting forth (A) the activities of the office or agency, or (B) matters observed pursuant to duty imposed by law as to which matters there was a duty to report, excluding, however, in criminal cases, matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel, or (C) in civil actions and proceedings and against the government in criminal cases, factual findings resulting from an investigation made pursuant to authority granted by law, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness.
(9) Records of Vital Statistics
Records of data compilations in any form, of births, fetal deaths, deaths or marriages, if the report thereof was made to a public office pursuant to requirements of law.
(10) Absence of Public Record or Entry
To prove the absence of a record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, or the non-occurrence or non-existence of a matter of which a record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, was regularly made and preserved by a public office or agency, evidence in the form of a certification in accordance with Rule 902, or testimony, that diligent search failed to disclose the record, report, statement, or data compilation, or entry.
(11) Records of Religious Organizations
Statements of births, marriages, divorces, deaths, legitimacy, and ancestry, relationship by blood or marriage, or other similar facts of personal or family history, contained in a regularly kept record of a religious organization.
(12) Marriage, Baptismal, and Similar Certificates
Statements of fact, contained in a certificate that the maker performed a marriage or ceremony or administered a sacrament, made by a member of the clergy, public official, or other person authorized by the rules or practices of a religious organization or by law to perform the act certified, and purporting to have been issued at the time of the act or within a reasonable time thereafter.
(13) Family Records
Statements of fact containing personal or family history contained in family bibles, genealogies, charts, engravings on rings, inscriptions on family portraits, engravings on urns, crypts, or tomb stones, or the like.
(14) Records of Documents Affecting an Interest in Property
The record of a document purporting to establish or affect an interest in property, as proof of the content of the original recorded document and its execution and delivery by each person by whom it purports to have been executed, if the record of a public office and an applicable statute authorizes the recording of documents of that kind in that office.
(15) Statements in Documents Affecting an Interest in Property
A statement contained in a document purporting to establish or affect an interest in property if the matter stated was relevant to the purpose of the document, unless the dealings with the property since the document was made have been inconsistent with the truth of the statement, or the purport of the document.
(16) Statements in Ancient Documents
Statements in a document in existence twenty (20) years or more, the authenticity of which is established.
(17) Market Reports, Commercial Publications
Market quotations, tabulations, lists, directories, or other published compilations, generally used and relied upon by the public or by persons in particular occupations.
(18) Learned Treatise
To the extent called to the attention of an expert witness upon cross-examination or relied upon by the witness in direct examination, statements contained in published treatises, periodicals, or pamphlets on a subject of history, medicine, or other science or art, established as a reliable authority by the testimony or admission of the witness or by other expert testimony or by judicial notice. If admitted, the statements may be read into evidence, but may not be received as exhibits unless the Court finds that the probative value of the statements outweigh their prejudicial effect.
(19) Reputation Concerning Personal or Family History
Reputation among members of a person's family by blood, adoption, or a marriage, or among his or her associates, or in the community concerning a person's birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, death, legitimacy, relationship by blood, adoption, marriage, ancestry or other similar fact of his or her personal or family history.
(20) Reputation Concerning Boundaries or General History
Reputation in a community, arising before the controversy, as to boundaries of or customs affecting lands in the community, and reputation as to events of general history important to the community or state, or nation in which located.
(21) Reputation as to Character
Reputation of a person's character among associates or in the community.
(22) Reserved
(23) Judgment as to Personal, Family or General History, or Boundaries
Judgments as proof of matters of personal, family or general history, or boundaries, essential to the judgment, if the same would be provable by evidence of reputation.
(24) Other Exceptions
A statement not specifically covered by any of the foregoing exceptions, but having equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, if the court determines that: (A) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact; (B) the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts; and (C) the general purposes of these rules and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence.
