All right, Lawyer Talk podcast, off the record, on the air, taking questions and comments. It turns out it really bugs people and I understand why, that we can be. That somebody in our system can be convicted based on one person's say so. And then we, in another episode, we took this a little bit step further. We started talking about hearsay and when hearsay can be used. So sometimes it's a person say so who's not even in court. And it turns out the US Supreme Court doesn't like this currently anyway. And they're claiming that because the witness isn't there in court, we can't cross examine that witness and therefore it violates the right of confrontation under the sixth Amendment. But anyway, we had an interesting comment on one of our hearsay discussions and it comes from Andrew. He says sexual assault cases don't need to abide by the hearsay rules. Correct. Like someone making a cry out after the event took place. All right, this is interesting because the answer is yes. Sexual assault cases have to abide by the hearsay rules. We deal with this all the time. I do a lot of appellate work here and I do a lot of trial work where I'm representing folks who are accused of sexual assaults and say I get an appeal where somebody's been convicted. The first thing I do is I read that transcript. Not the first, but one of the principal things I look at when I read that transcript of the trial is how many times other witnesses were allowed to repeat the accusations by the alleged victim because each time is a potential hearsay problem. I say potential because not all hearsay is actually inadmissible hearsay. Hearsay has a definition out of court statement offered for the truth other than the statement while testifying at trial. So it has to be offered for the truth and it can't have an exception. So I think what Andrew's getting at is making a cry out after the event took place. There is an exception, a really well known exception to the hearsay rule called an excited utterance, which means statements made while you're still under the stress of an incident or the stress of watching something or whatever event you've had to endure, even as a victim or otherwise are, are deemed under common law, old school case law to be reliable. So, you know, if I'm. If I've just endured something stressful and I scream out, oh my gosh, that really hurt, so and so hit me. And I'm still sort of freaked out and I'm stressed out, in order to get that testimony admitted at trial, I would have to lay a foundation. All right, witness, you heard this person make a statement? Yes, I did. Let's talk about the circumstances surrounding that statement. Did you have a chance to see that person? Oh, yeah, I did. And how did that person appear? Well, she appeared really, really stressed out. She was shaking. She was. Her voice was quivering. She was up and down and emotional, really excited. All right, now what did that person say? Well, the other side is immediately going to say, objection, it's hearsay, because this witness is being asked to repeat what this other person said, so it must be hearsay. But we've laid the foundation for what's called an excited utterance. We've established that this statement was. Was made while the individual who made the statement was still under the stress of the excitement. Now, this is independent of whether there's a second problem, a constitutional problem under the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. So leave that aside for a second. So back to Andrew's question. Sexual assault cases don't need to abide. A lot of states have specific hearsay rules and exceptions about sexual assault cases, particularly child sexual assault cases. And sometimes they get a little more latitude or leeway because of that. But most of the time, the prosecution is trying to get those statements in as excited utterances or another exception statements made for medical diagnosis or treatment. So if you're a sexual assault victim and you go get what's called a sane exam or sexual assault nurse examination, the courts largely in Ohio deem the statements that you make during that examination to be statements made for medical diagnosis and treatment. And they sort of get in the weeds on this because, you know, you would ask, how on earth does identifying the alleged perpetrator have anything to do with medical diagnosis or treatment? Well, they say it does because it could for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which would be like somebody's DNA or whatever, I don't know. But it gets a little bit tortured. But most courts are letting that kind of testimony come in. Another common scenario is that sexual assault victims, particularly children, undergo what's called a forensic interview, where there's a trained interviewer who is, by practice or by training, supposed to be able to question witnesses without suggesting answers. And those answers, or that often happens during the course and scope of the initial medical diagnosis or treatment. That's a trickier one, particularly in Ohio. Not all those statements necessarily come in to evidence as non hearsay or under a hearsay exception. It gets really, really complicated beyond the scope of this. But the answer, the simple answer to Andrew's question is yes, I mean, there are hearsay rules and they still apply even in sexual assault cases. But sometimes there are unique hearsay rules that come into play that permit perhaps a little bit more hearsay and other types of cases. So, look, I hope that helps clarify it. It's complicated. I'm trying to make it as simple as I can. 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