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The Exclusionary Rule is primarily centered around police misconduct violating the 4th and 5th Amendments.

While on routine patrol, my partner and I were dispatched to a disturbance at 123 Stupid Street.  When we got to the front of 125 Stupid Street, we saw a man laying on the ground with an arrow through his body entering at the liver area and exiting through the rib cage on the left.  The man was in obvious pain and barely able to speak.  People were screaming and pointing at another man who they said did it to the man with the arrow in his gut.  While my partner grabbed the guy they were pointing at, I bent down and began to question the man with the arrow in his gut to get a statement.  The man asked me if he was dying.   Under what exception was I likely involved in at that moment?

The hearsay rule and its exceptions developed over a 800-year history in English and American law.

The Confrontation Clause is from which of the following:

Hearsay is secondhand testimony;  reports by one person about what another person said.  

You are shopping with a friend and she notices a “customer” placing clothing in her large purse.  She immediately tells you what happened in great detail and you are sure your friend is competent and a “good” person.  The “customer” is detained by store personnel and is ultimately arrested when the police arrive.  The camera shows both you and your friend to be on the same isle during the alleged shoplifting incident and you give the officer your names and contact numbers.  Both of you are likely to be good witnesses for the prosecution of the shoplifter.

Fortunately, the hearsay rules developed in common law in England were brought to the colonies by settlers.

Only verbal statements by witness can be considered hearsay.

The hearsay rule is important because history revealed that “defendants” in court were victimized by English Criminal Courts allowing anonymous accusers and absentee witnesses to testify against defendants.

Cross-examination has been called (by former Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., 1841-1935 – wow! huh?), “The greatest legal truth finding procedure ever devised.”  The purpose of cross-examination is, therefore, to get at the “truth.”  [That means that the defense counsel is questioning the state’s witness and/or the prosecutor (representing the state) is questioning (examining) the defense’s witness.] This purpose of the process of “cross-examination” is to ____________ the opponents witness.