Opinion ID: 2245190
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: issues

Text: Referring to preceding testimony by the witness to the effect that the defendant had told her he was going to take the decedent to the hospital, the prosecutor asked the witness, And when was that, that he stopped the car? The witness answered: It was after he was supposed to have stabbed her. The defendant moved to strike the answer as hearsay, and the motion was overruled. The answer may have been subject to a motion to strike in that the witness did not speak from first-hand knowledge. This question was not raised. The statement, however, was not hearsay which, under our rules of evidence, is an extrajudicial assertion offered into evidence to show the truth of matters asserted therein and thus resting for its value upon the credibility of the out-of-court asserter. Harvey v. State, (1971) 256 Ind. 473, 476, 269 N.E.2d 759. It is apparent that the defendant objected to the suggestion that he had stabbed the victim. However, the answer was not offered as evidence that he had. Rather, it was evidence that someone other than the witness had so accused him.