Acquiring Admissible Statements Worksheet

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Acquiring Admissible Statements Worksheet

Conduct an Internet search by visiting the Arizona, Illinois, New York, and California state websites. Locate the legal requirements needed to acquire admissible statements in these particular states. Complete the worksheet below with your findings.

State Legal Requirements Precedent Other

Arizona

Illinois

New York

California

In one to three paragraphs, answer the questions below regarding the regulatory information you found while conducting your research.

1. When reviewing the legal requirements to acquire an admissible statement, what similarities did you find among the four states?

In general the similarities among the four states pertain to the use of public records such as religious ones, family history, documents more than 20 years old, recorded recollections, the absence of public records, vital statistics, statements about the declarant's present sense impressions or the declarant's the existing mental, physical or emotional state, statements about the person's medical condition. Arizona, Illinois and New York also allow telephone conversations to be admitted into evidence as long as one part has consented to such recording (Pilgrim Software, 2007).

2. What differences did you find among the four states?

California requires both parties' consent to telephone conversation recording for the telephone call to be admitted as evidence (Pilgrim Software, 2007).

California has admitted hearsay statements by victims who were murdered, as demonstrated by the (Colb, 2008) Giles v. California.

New York Evidence Law (2006) does not allow prior consistent statements. They can only be used to disprove misassigned motive, as demonstrated by People v. Seit, 86 N.Y.2d 92 (1995) (p. 15).However, New York has made exceptions to such statements when they apply to present impressions (p. 15). Out-of-court identifications made by persons not present is treated as hearsay (p. 15). This is also true for California (DiCarlo, 2001).

In Arizona, former testimony in a non-criminal action or proceeding is admissible. If it relates to criminal actions or proceedings it is inadmissible ("Arizona rules," 2009). Yet, Arizona allows firsthand written accounts of the person's activities or routines (2009).

Illinois (2011) contends that one must "[...] prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the original writing, recording, or photograph is required,