Opinion ID: 3038252
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Past Recollection Recorded

Text: First, Appellant contends that the District Court erred by refusing to instruct the jury that the prior recorded recollection of Miles (which included statements made by Ralston to Miles) could be considered substantive evidence. Appellant asserts that the jury was precluded from considering Ralston’s statements to Miles for their substance because the Court failed to instruct the jury that Miles’ statements to Prendergast - a second level of hearsay requiring its own exception - could be considered substantively. For the following reasons, while Appellant may be correct, any error was harmless. Federal Rule of Evidence 803(5) is an exception to the hearsay rule and states that: 4 A memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable the witness to testify fully and accurately, shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in the witness’ memory and to reflect that knowledge correctly. If admitted, the memorandum or record may be read into evidence but may not itself be received as an exhibit unless offered by an adverse party. Rule 803(5) “requires the witness to have either made the record herself, or to have reviewed and adopted the statement, at a time when the matter it concerned was fresh in her memory.” United States v. Mornan, 413 F.3d 372, 377 (3d Cir. 2005). In this case, Prendergast interviewed Miles soon after Miles spoke to Ralston. Furthermore, Miles signed and adopted the Prendergast report as his own, and had insufficient recollection at trial to testify fully and accurately. The Prendergast report fell within the past recollection recorded exception to hearsay with respect to Miles’ statements to Prendergast. Nevertheless, the District Court explicitly refused to instruct the jury on past recollection recorded. Instead, it only instructed the jury that Ralston’s statements could be considered as substantive evidence because they were admissions by a party-opponent. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(A). Certainly, we agree that Ralston’s statements to Miles found within the Prendergast report were admissions by a party-opponent. However, without including the requested past recollection recorded instruction regarding Miles’ statements to Prendergast as requested by the Appellant, the jury was not able to substantively consider Ralston’s statements to Miles found within the Prendergast report 5 itself. Ralston’s statements to Miles found in the Prendergast report were hearsay within hearsay. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 805, both levels of hearsay needed to fall within an exception for the hearsay to be admissible. Here, both levels of hearsay were admissible, yet the District Court failed to instruct the jury on the exception applicable to the second level of hearsay (past recollection recorded). Nevertheless, any error in the jury instructions with respect to this issue was harmless. See Hill v. Reederei F. Laeisz G.M.B.H., Rostock, 435 F.3d 404, 420 (3d Cir. 2006) (“For purposes of harmless error analysis . . . we ask whether it is highly probable that the error did not affect the result.”). The jury was allowed to use Miles’ testimony for impeachment purposes against Ralston. The statements at issue in the Prendergast report were primarily useful as impeachment material to the extent they differed from Ralston’s testimony at trial. Thus, Appellant received the primary benefit sought out through Miles’ testimony.