What is the test for admitting hearsay in a criminal case?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. Maciel, S070536 (Cal. 2013):

Moreover, contrary to defendant's assertion, the officers' statements that defendant had "set . . . up" the murders in this case were not "inadmissible hearsay." Rather, they served the nonhearsay purpose of giving context to defendant's responses. (See People v. Riccardi (2012) 54 Cal.4th 758, 801-802, fn. 21 (Riccardi) [detective's statements were properly admitted for the nonhearsay purpose of giving context to the interviewee's answers].) Moreover, the court instructed the jury that law enforcement officers were permitted to misrepresent evidence in their possession in order to motivate a suspect to confess, and that the officers' "allegation[s]" in this case were "not received for the truth of any allegation but because it is part of the statement and helps you judge the response of the defendant." Thus, there is no reasonable likelihood the jury "would consider [the] investigators' statements on the [tape] as substantive evidence of [defendant's] guilt." (See Dubria v. Smith (9th Cir. 2000) 224 F.3d 995, 1002 ["Any impression that the jury may have had that it could consider [the detective's] statements to be true was specifically and timely corrected" by the trial judge's admonitions].) Nor do we agree with defendant's arguments that the officers' statements reasonably can be characterized as analogous to statements by a "witness in a criminal case . . . express[ing] an opinion concerning the guilt of an accused" or statements by "a prosecutor . . . express[ing] his personal opinion

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