Hearsay drills: FRE 801 & 802

(a) “Statement” means a person’s oral assertion, written assertion, or nonverbal conduct, if the person intended it as an assertion.
(b) “Declarant” means the person who made the statement.

Three consequences carry this battery. A machine’s own output — a thermostat log, a hospital monitor’s trace — has no declarant, so the hearsay rule never reaches it; attack it through authentication and reliability. A device that merely records a person speaking is different: the speaker is still the declarant. And conduct is a statement only when the person meant it to communicate — a deaf witness signing an answer is asserting; a farmer fencing his field is just farming.

On the record: a cardiac monitor prints a heart rate of 41, and the strip is offered to prove the patient’s pulse. Not hearsay — no person asserted anything, so the remedy is a reliability attack, not an objection under 802. The nurse’s note “pulse weak since 6 a.m.” is different: a person’s written assertion, and the hearsay analysis begins.

(c) “Hearsay” means a statement that:
(1) the declarant does not make while testifying at the current trial or hearing; and
(2) a party offers in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted in the statement.

The test for prong (2): does the statement’s value depend on the jury believing the speaker? If the words matter just because they were said, the definition is never met. And a claimed non-truth purpose counts only when the case genuinely needs it — “background” is a label, not a purpose. The recurring non-truth purposes:

• Effect on the listenerA warning heard is notice, true or not — notice, motive, fear, good faith.
• Verbal actsWords of acceptance, a threat, a defamatory sentence — the law attaches consequences to the utterance itself.
• Impeachment onlyAn earlier, different account proves the witness is inconsistent, whichever telling is true.
• Circumstantial state of mind“I am Napoleon” is offered because it’s false — evidence of disorder, not of empire.

On the record: “Marco knows what you did, and he’s coming” — offered to explain why the defendant fled town that night. Not hearsay: its work was done when the words reached his ears, whatever Marco knew. Offered to prove Marco was coming, the identical sentence is hearsay.

801(d)(1) — a declarant-witness’s prior statement. The declarant testifies and is subject to cross-examination about it, and the statement:
(A) is inconsistent with their testimony and was given under penalty of perjury at a trial, hearing, or other proceeding or in a deposition;
(B) is consistent and offered to rebut a charge of recent fabrication or improper influence, or to rehabilitate credibility attacked on another ground;
(C) identifies a person as someone the declarant perceived earlier.

801(d)(2) — an opposing party’s statement, offered against that party, which:
(A) was made by the party; (B) is one the party manifested that it adopted or believed to be true; (C) was made by a person authorized to speak on the subject; (D) was made by the party’s agent or employee on a matter within, and during, that relationship; or (E) was made by a coconspirator during and in furtherance of the conspiracy.
The statement must be considered but does not by itself establish the authority under (C), the relationship under (D), or the conspiracy under (E). And — added effective December 1, 2024 — “if a party’s claim, defense, or potential liability is directly derived from a declarant or the declarant’s principal, a statement that would be admissible against the declarant or the principal under this rule is also admissible against the party.”

802. Hearsay is not admissible unless any of the following provides otherwise: a federal statute; these rules; or other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court.

On the record: a defendant’s own text message — “my fault, I was on my phone” — offered against her by the other driver. Offered for its truth, out of court — yet not hearsay, because 801(d)(2)(A) defines a party’s own statement out of the category when offered against that party. No oath, no reliability showing required.

The 801(d)(1) and (d)(2)(A)–(E) lists above condense the rule’s wording; 801(a)–(c), 802, and the quoted 2024 sentence are verbatim — full text at the link. Ruling something hearsay starts the analysis rather than ending it: Rules 803, 804 and 807 hold the exceptions, and they are their own drill set.