The white house press is captivated at the briefing by the pentagon spokeswoman’s dramatic tale of how the brave government soldiers saved the unsuspecting towns people from 5 BIG BAD lone wolf terrorists last week. I overheard the N.Y. Times reporter gasp… 5’s a lot!
Many lay people are fascinated by legal things. Or maybe I should say, things people imagine to be legal things. That’s why our controllers make so many preposterous legal shows and movies. They are dramatic and thrilling and provide an excellent and insidious way to continue the long con they run on everyone about all of the justice and freedom there is. The TV shows and movies bear no resemblance to the reality of the actual “just-a-system” that exists inside the world you inhabit, but then… that’s the whole point of brainwashing, isn’t it?
Today I am going to give you a quick lesson in the law of evidence, gratis. You are going to learn what hearsay actually is. People hear “objection, hearsay” on TV and in movies all the time, but really they have no idea what it is. And, it is my hope, that once you learn what it is, that you will then be able to use that concept in your everyday life to help you negotiate the maze of lies they have you living in.
Technically hearsay is a form of inadmissible evidence. Like speculation, or opinion, or testimony given without a proper “foundation”. If something is “hearsay” then it is NOT admissible evidence. Evidence is supposed to be factual and reliable.
The underlying concepts developed by lawyers over a long period of time can be very useful in thinking about what type of information is reliable factual evidence. The centerpiece of all methods for ferreting out the truth, or more accurately, for ferreting out what is not true, is cross examination.
Ask yourself, would you agree to a trial where you didn’t have the right to cross examine the witnesses against you? I doubt it. That is why you have a constitutional right to face the witnesses against you. And would you trust the results of any trial where the evidence was not cross examined? Again, I doubt it.
An unnamed source sent me this top secret story board showing some of the ideas they are floating at the NSA pitch meetings. Apparently they may be adding some great new characters and a touch of romance to the ISIS lineup this season!! So be sure to set your DVR to find out — on the news.
The simple reality is that most any “story” can be made to sound pretty damned good…. IF I am not allowed to ask any questions about it. And that, my friend, is the reason that hearsay is not admissible.
Because you can’t cross examine hearsay.
Hearsay is not permitted, because time and experience have shown that evidence that is not subject to cross examination is inherently unreliable.
Here is working definition of hearsay under the rules of evidence:
Any out of court statement (this includes the information in documents) offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
It may look simple but it is not. They spend weeks examining it in law school evidence class. It is subtle. Now there are a lot of minor exceptions to the “hearsay rule” but those exceptions can be summarized generally as follows, official records, statements against interest, and “excited utterances”. We’re not going to get into them. We’re just going to cover the basics and show you how to apply the concept of hearsay to the matrix around you.
The tricky part to determining whether something is in fact hearsay is that the out of court statement must be offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. MOST out of court statements are NOT hearsay. Let me show you what the difference is with an example.
The witness testifies that, “Billy said he closed the garage door‘.
So, is that hearsay? On TV, sure it is. But the fact is you CAN’T KNOW if something is hearsay until you know what the evidence/out-of-court-statement, is being offered to prove. You must always remember THAT.
A simple truth that people never apply to themselves.
Let’s just say the case involves liability for a very cranky old three legged cat having gotten out of the house. And it is suspected that this wonderful creature may have gone out through the garage when the door was left open. Can the above testimony be “offered” to prove that the garage door was in fact closed? NO. That would be hearsay.
But the testimony could be used if it was offered to explain why the witness hadn’t checked to see that the garage was closed before he left. Do you see the difference?
In the first instance it is hearsay because it is offered to prove “the matter asserted” in the statement, namely, that the garage door was in fact closed. But in the next instance it is being used to show a state of mind for the actual witness. Whether the garage door was or was not in fact closed is not relevant.
All that is relevant is that the witness CLAIMS he heard Billy make the statement. NOT that the statement he claims to have heard is/was true. So you can cross examine the witness on whether it is believable that he in fact heard the statement, and whether he actually believed the statement, and whether he acted consistently with someone who had heard and believed such a statement from Billy.
Do you see the difference? It is subtle and it can be quite confusing. Don’t feel bad if you don’t quite see it, most lawyers don’t even understand the distinction. Like most people, they just think that any out of court statement is hearsay, but it’s not.
This type of “evidence” has lost favor in most western jurisdictions, but I heard someone on FOX news report that the White House says that it is still used in traditional sharia law where they have evil muslim homegrown radicalized lone wolf extremists waiting to destroy our way of life!!
You have to ask what it is being offered to prove. And if you can cross examine the witness on the reason for why it is being offered, then it is probably NOT hearsay.
Think of it like this. If the witness is there to prove that the garage door was closed, then he has to testify about that fact. He could testify that he saw it closed. Or that he heard it close. Those would not be direct evidence that Billy closed it. Maybe an inference from circumstances could be drawn, but not direct evidence of who closed it, just that it was closed.
So if the main issue was whether Billy closed it and all you had was the witness saying that he heard Billy say he closed it, well, that’s hearsay, it doesn’t come in.
Do you see how it all comes down to the ability to cross examine the witness on the evidence the witness is offering?
A witness can be questioned on whether he actually heard a statement made or whether the witness was mistaken about that or is in fact lying about what he heard IF ANYTHING. But you can’t cross a witness on whether or not the door was in fact closed by Billy if all he knows is that he heard Billy say he closed it. Got it?
Evidence is about facts. A witness needs to say what he knows, not repeat what someone else said to show something is true. If the basis for a witness’ knowledge about something is that he heard someone say it, well, that ain’t Jack S**t. That is hearsay. If what someone said is the evidence you want to bring that something “is” true, then you need to bring in THAT person and let me cross examine them about the BASIS for their statement. That is the distinction.
You may have to re-read it and think about it a bit. It is complex. But the distinction is vital in assessing information that comes at you all the time.
I objected to the picture the government produced on the grounds that it might have been photo-shopped so I should have a right to examine it and the person who took the picture. The judge denied my objection saying that having it appear on a government website was proof enough of the picture’s authenticity so it was coming in. The judge said that in this post 911 world that if I didn’t believe the government then maybe I was a terrorist too!
Congratulations, you may have just learned something that less than 1% of the population understands.
Once you see the distinction and grasp what hearsay actually is, then it should be clear why no thinking person should accept HEARSAY to form a firm opinion on anything. It defies logic to do so because there is no way to know if the information you are relying on is true e.g. that Billy in fact closed the door, because the information has not been “examined”.
Now of course the reality is that the world is overflowing with hearsay. And everyone loosely relies on it out of necessity for many things. And that’s fine. The world you live in is not a court room and you can’t expect to live by the rules of evidence. That would be absurd.
But what you can and must keep in mind is that if the only evidence you have would be considered hearsay, THEN you need to be WARY of the reliability of any conclusions you draw because you don’t have ANY EVIDENCE. So your opinion should remain very flexible because your opinion is based on crap.
Naturally, the reality with people is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what it should be. And of course our controllers know this and they take advantage of the people through this. The people tend to treat all information equally. Or even worse, they OVER weight the least reliable hearsay information just because they saw it on TV or read it in what they have been TOLD is a “respected” journal or newspaper etc.
In fact most people form almost all of their opinions of the world on nothing but rank hearsay twice removed. (meaning hearsay on top of hearsay!) People gobble up whatever their favorite “trusted” mouthpiece says. And they base their opinions on information that would NEVER EVEN BE ALLOWED IN as evidence in a legitimate proceeding.
Now I want to give you a bit of insight into how much of your world view has been built on this type of “information”. Let me take apart just one simple example of a very common piece of “news” you might hear or see and show you how ridiculously UNRELIABLE it is and how totally INADMISSIBLE it would be. Then you can see what I mean and you will see hopefully by analogy, how much of your world is just a concoction. No evidence at all for any of it.
Here a scene is shown from recently declassified pentagon footage of recent naval action in the South China Sea. Reporters risk their lives to bring viewers footage like this and to get the story. They said that Our brave troops were victorious once again! Freedom is safe for another day.
And just so we’re clear, there is no official records exceptions to cover un-checkable nonsense like I’m about to give. So we can eliminate that.
You are watching TV and they show a clip of the white house press secretary making an announcement that the pentagon is saying that a top ISIS leader has been taken out in a drone strike. Then the hosts and guests begin to discuss the “implications” of such a thing.
Can you spot the incredible number of hearsay problems with this situation?
The white house spokesperson making the announcement is just reading a statement he or someone else wrote. The spokesman tells us it is based upon information they were given. How do we know they didn’t make the entire thing up? OR that the person who gave the information to them just made the information up? We don’t. We don’t know if they were even given any information let alone the information they are telling us. Do you see?
That is how fundamentally flawed the “statement” as evidence is and why it would never be allowed IN to any serious fact finding venue to “prove” that some ISIS leader had in fact been killed in a drone strike. AND why you should be very wary of trusting such information to form your opinion!! It is useless hearsay, nothing more.
At a minimum we need to see the reports upon which the statements are based and find out who wrote them so we can question THAT person. But we NEVER do see the reports. The government cloaks everything behind a veil of “national security”. Isn’t that convenient?
Yet people act as though this type of silliness from the news and government is the holy of holies of information. I mean “my god man, the white house announced IT!!!” lol Such nonsense would be laughed out of court.
Here an artist renders the holy of holies – the reporters briefing room at the pentagon. Average people could never understand the information the chosen ones are given here directly. The government and the reporters must work together to interpret the information so they can then give it to the people. They have gotten quite adept at GIVING IT to the people.
Now let’s continue analyzing the “statement”. Right off the bat we know that the “pentagon” can’t say anything. Only a specific person at the pentagon can say anything. So again, without the ability to find out WHO at the pentagon allegedly provided the information — so we can at least go CROSS examine THEM — we are truly in the never-never land of untrustworthy UNTESTABLE information.
In a trial, you can’t just wheel someone in and have them make statements about something called ISIS and its “leader” having been “killed”. You have to bring EVIDENCE that can be cross examined. How do we know who was killed? How do we know anyone was killed? How do we know what if any connection they had to something called “ISIS”. We don’t.
At trial, in order to allow evidence in for any of what we heard in the press secretary’s statement there would first have to be a foundation laid to identify what “ISIS” is, who is in it and how we know who their leaders are. And that information all has to be from someone with actual knowledge of each of those pieces of information and each of those people have to be subject to cross examination.
But the public has never gotten that. And we never will! All the public EVER gets about anything of substance is just an amorphous blob of innuendo, speculation and hearsay hidden behind the protective and convenient veil of “national security”. Thus people imagine ISIS to be whatever they want or “fear” it might be. “Membership” in ISIS is no different than a slogan like “hope and change”. It is meaningless because it means something different to everyone.
Think of all the hearsay problems with just trying to “confirm” some ISIS leader was IN FACT killed. Who ID’d the body? Who has actual knowledge that he was “a leader”. Who has actual knowledge of how he died? Do you see?
Think how many ways the “information” from the press secretary could be picked apart in a murder trial by defense counsel. Think how ludicrous it is to trust such a sweeping completely unsubstantiated statement to make “decisions” about whether we should “bomb the country back into the stone age”!! lol
What do you mean how do I know what she stands for? She fights for us! I saw it right there. And she said it. Plus I got a bumper sticker that says the same thing. So sure I believe it. Why wouldn’t I? I mean if it wasn’t true everyone would know right?
All you actually have in that example I gave you is some political hack at a podium making a statement. That is actually all you have. You have ZERO FACTS to support the truth of what he said.
How much validity or credence should a rational person give to such a statement to accept that a “leader of ISIS” was killed in a drone strike by the U.S.? None.
Without the ability to cross examine you have to TRUST. You are not going “trust” the government witnesses against you in a trial if you are charged with murder are you? Of course not, you are going to demand your right to cross examine them, because Cross is the only way to find out whether what someone is saying holds up to scrutiny! But we never get that scrutiny with government information or news. Hell we don’t even get to cross examine the person making the hearsay statements let alone the actual witnesses we NEED access to! Lol So it is crap.
Now if you want to consider the press secretary’s statement for purposes OTHER THAN the FACT that some ISIS leader was supposedly killed in a drone strike by the U.S. well… that is fine. THAT makes sense. Because that is NOT hearsay.
There is nothing unreasonable about considering the statement to be evidence that the government wants to continue to create the appearance of a “war on terror”, or that the president is trying to deflect attention from his signing of some bogus executive order. Or maybe someone in the government wanted the guy killed because he knew something he shouldn’t and now they are covering their tracks by making this ISIS story up. Or maybe it was all a mistake. Or maybe NOTHING at all even happened and the guy they said they “killed” and was a “terrorist” is a gyro salesman obliviously vacationing in Cabo. We don’t KNOW. Analyzing the statement LIKE THAT makes sense, BECAUSE it isn’t hearsay for THOSE purposes. Get it?
I could do the same analysis with basically any information we are given from “the news”. It is virtually all nothing more than repeating something some government spokesman or report claims to have found, or telling you what someone else told the reporter. Totally useless hearsay.
An early lesson most people never learn how to actually apply in their lives.
The dirty unspoken secret is that News and government “information” relies almost 100% upon a TRUST by the people that the newsmen and governments do not deserve to be given. Trust is something that is earned. It is something you give a friend or family member you know and who has a reason to be honest with you. Trust is something that is given to someone who would bear the brunt of violating that trust.
The news and the government have NONE of those qualities and risk nothing by lying. They just make up more lies to cover their lies when they are caught because there is NEVER any outside investigation of the government. Only the government is allowed access to the people and information that is necessary to investigate the government. And only the news “investigates” the news. Do you see that?
You can’t be a rational person and “trust” a government spokesman or some Brian Williams or Dan Rather type character who claims he has gotten information from some unnamed source within some organization. THAT type of trust makes NO SENSE. There is no basis for it. In fact there is a huge amount of evidence to show they cannot be trusted. But still the fools trust.
The sad fact is that we can’t know if even one tiny bit of whether most things that parade around as “news” are true. Not one stinking thing. All we know is that they are reporting that something happened. What happened, if anything, is something you have to use your own brain and experience to try and figure out. Not just accept what they say. That is silly.
Yet the masses run around and argue with each other about “reports’ and “facts” given to them by the government and the news about things that supposedly “happen” all over the world. They have built whole industries on this nonsense! The people in the “news and commentary” business argue about all of these “events” and imagine that they “have” all sorts of “details” about who did it and why and who they were connected to and on and on.
The reality is that all of these “experts” and analysts and commentators are just arguing about a bedtime STORY that was released by the government. A story so unreliable that a jury would never even be allowed to hear it. Not even reliable enough to “let the jury decide for itself”. Just think about that.
That is the actual quality of the information the people “get” from the news and their government. Rank Hearsay. But the conditioning and brainwashing are so deep, the people can’t see this. And the entire rickety broken ass system relies completely on this illusion. Just a grand sleight of hand over the population. And they gobble it up!! lol
I was thumbing through this textbook and I came across this graphic describing journalism’s sacred role in a free society and how the people depend on the press. It really made an impact on me. The press deserves my appreciation. They keep the government honest you know.
I find it particularly funny that political operatives and mainstream newsmen have some of the lowest credibility ratings whenever supposed polls are done, right down there with used car salesmen and lawyers! Yet people nonetheless continue to imagine that they are “informing themselves” by watching the “news” or reading the NY times or “the economist” or waiting to find out what their favorite commentator has to say about the latest “news”. My god the idiocracy.
And I laugh extra hard at lawyers who fall into all of this, and they do. Oh believe me they do. THEY should know better. It is a bunch of useless hearsay for gods sake. It is crap!
Well I am about done. Maybe now that you understand what you are looking right at, you will get a kick out of how insidious and prevalent hearsay is. It is everywhere. And maybe you will rethink some of the things you thought you “knew were facts”.
The fact is that we don’t know Richard, lol. We get told a lot of stuff from cradle to grave and most of it is just hearsay. It is up to each of us to use our brains. Those in charge know that isn’t going to happen, and they take advantage of that.
I hope that understanding what hearsay actually is and why it is not admissible helps you.
I have to run, I just remembered that I taped the “No Spin Zone” last night and I need to go watch it to find out what’s happening in the world and what I should think. lol
Take care, move towards the light, and tell someone the truth about the law. Oh and enjoy my new pic of Legalman.
And the truth shall set you free.