Opinion ID: 2624988
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Is evidence of the acquittal inadmissible hearsay?

Text: The superior court did not exclude evidence of Hess's acquittal on hearsay grounds. But the court of appeals discussed hearsay as an alternative ground for exclusion. [23] Hess asserts that hearsay does not preclude admission and challenges the legal authority cited by the court of appeals. The state argues that evidence of the acquittal is hearsay and does not fall within any hearsay exception. Alaska Rule of Evidence 802 provides that hearsay is not admissible. Alaska Rule of Evidence 801 defines hearsay as a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. [24] If offered for the purpose of challenging the weight of A.R.'s testimony, the only purpose for which it is relevant, notice or evidence of his acquittal is not hearsay. An acquittal is an act that has legal effect, much like the classic example of a contract that is formed out of court, but which is not hearsay. [25] Such statements are not testimonial, but are acts to which the law attaches legal significance. [26] Evidence of an acquittal has legal significance. It shows that a jury harbored reasonable doubt about at least one element of a crime. [27] The prior acquittal does not prove the truth of the historical facts of the first case; it proves only that the previous jury did not find that the state proved all elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The court of appeals relied on our decision in Spenard Action Committee v. Lot 3, Block 1, Evergreen Subdivision. [28] There we adopted the policy articulated in the Alaska Evidence Rules commentary against admitting criminal judgments. [29] The commentary explains: If a judgment of guilty in a criminal case, which follows proof beyond a reasonable doubt, is to have impact in subsequent cases, the impact should be by way of collateral estoppel, not by admitting the previous judgment. The judgment tells the second trier of fact nothing; that trier will either disregard it or defer to it, neither of which tactic is intended by the Federal Rule.... But the fact remains that the trier of fact in the second case cannot know how to use the first finding. There is no reason to adopt a rule that can only confuse the trial process. [30] The court of appeals also discussed F.T. v. State. [31] There we held that the trial court erred when it took judicial notice of previous domestic violence restraining orders to find that a child's father had a history of violence. [32] We did not discuss hearsay, but concluded that the trial court erred by taking notice of facts alleged in court records. [33] At first glance, Spenard Action Committee, F.T., and the commentary suggest that acquittals, like convictions, usually should not be excepted from the general rule that they are inadmissible hearsay. But this case differs from those cases and does not conflict with the policy the commentary expresses. In Spenard Action Committee, the proponent attempted to establish the historical facts of the case at barnamely that the business was a house of prostitutionby introducing evidence that a non-party employee of that business had been convicted of assignation in an earlier case. [34] And, like the proponent in Spenard Action Committee, the trial court in F.T. impermissibly attempted to establish the historical facts of a party's conduct by adopting facts from an unrelated court proceeding. Similarly, the Alaska Evidence Rules commentary addresses evidentiary uses of a criminal judgment to establish the historical facts of underlying conduct, or to bar an issue through the use of collateral estoppel. The state here introduced evidence that Hess had sexually assaulted A.R. in order to show his subjective awareness of [H.W.'s] response to the sexual activity which [was] taking place. The state explained that [e]vidence of Hess' prior sexual assaults is directly relevant .... Proof that Hess has [in the] past ... disregarded the lack of consent expressed by his sexual partners is highly probative evidence that in this case, Hess was willing to ignore the risk that H.W. had not given her consent.... Thus, as Hess asserted, the state intended to use evidence of his conduct with A.R. to prove his propensity to disregard H.W.'s alleged lack of consent. The acquittal was therefore more important for its bearing on the inference of propensity to be drawn in assessing his conduct with H.W. than for its bearing on the historical facts of his conduct with A.R. True, the acquittal also implies that Hess did not sexually assault A.R. But rebutting evidence of a defendant's propensity to commit the present act differs from attempting to establish or challenge the defendant's actual prior conduct. Therefore, Spenard Action Committee, F.T., and the Alaska Evidence Rules commentary did not make evidence of Hess's acquittal inadmissible. The state also cites several federal opinions to support its argument that the prior acquittal is inadmissible hearsay. But those cases address hearsay in terms of collateral estoppel, and do not present independent reasons for exclusion. [35] As evidence of historical facts, evidence of what other jurors believed in a prior criminal case is unreliable. [36] But the reliability problem does not exist when a defendant is not trying to establish historical facts, but merely the fact of the acquittal itself. The evidence reliably reflects the fact of acquittal. A court thus may take judicial notice of the fact of an acquittal under Alaska Rule of Evidence 201(b)(2), as implicitly requested here. Or it may allow evidence of the acquittal to be introduced as a hearsay exception under Alaska Rule of Evidence 803(8) because the acquittal is a matter of public record. [37]