Past Recollection Recorded Law & Legal Definition
Past recollection recorded is an exception to the hearsay rule, which prohibits introduction of out-of-court statements of unavailable witnesses into evidence when offered for truthfulness. It is a written record of an event, made shortly after the event has occurred. In orderto be amissible as an exception to the earsay rule, four requirements must be met:
- The memorandum must relate to matters of which the sponsoring witness once had first-hand knowledge.
- The record must have been made when the matter was fresh in the witness’ memory. Under the Federal Rules, even a record made several days after the events in question might be held to satisfy this requirement if there was evidence that the person doing the recording would still have had a clear memory of it.
- A sponsoring witness’ memory of the event recorded must now be impaired – if he can clearly remember the events, he must testify from memory rather than have the document admitted. Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, he must merely have some impairment of his memory.
- The sponsoring witness at the trial must testify that the record was accurate when it was made.
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