Court Opinion

ID: 9635420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:50:20.0346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:26.942196
License: Public Domain

WATHEN, Justice,
with whom NICHOLS and SCOLNIK, JJ., join, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the Court’s holding that the presiding justice erred in ruling that the investigative laboratory report was inadmissible under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. At trial defendant advanced four theories in support of the admissibility of the report. He argued alternatively that it was either a record of a regularly conducted business, former testimony, a statement against interest, or the admission of a party opponent. In his brief, defendant argues only the last two theories and cites no authority in support of either position. This Court correctly disposes of the arguments raised in the brief but then resurrects the business records argument offered at trial. In my judgment the investigative report at issue in this case is not admissible as either a public record or as a business record.
We have not previously addressed the interrelationship between the hearsay exceptions for public records, M.R.Evid. 803(8), and business records, M.R.Evid. 803(6). Although the two rules may overlap to some extent, it is apparent that the rules are neither coextensive in rationale nor scope. Rule 803(6) premises reliability on the systematic, businesslike way in which records are kept as part of a regularly conducted business. Rule 803(8) relies less on regularity and recognizes the inherent impartiality and reliability of records made by public officials. The business records exception is directed toward documents generated as a regular practice in the course of a regularly conducted business. The public records exception, on the other hand, refers to reports of “regularly recorded activities, or matters observed pursuant to duty imposed by law and as to which there was a duty to report, or factual findings resulting from an investigation made pursuant to authority granted by law.” Unlike the business records provision, Rule 803(8) contains no requirement of contemporaneousness nor does it require foundation testimony by the custodian. Significantly, Rule 803(8) specifically excludes “investigative reports by police and other law enforcement personnel.” The opinion in United States v. Oates, 560 F.2d 45 (2d Cir.1977) is instructive with respect *999to the relationship between the federal equivalent to Rule 803(8) and the remaining hearsay exceptions. In Oates, the prosecution offered, and the trial court admitted as a business record, the official report and worksheet of the United States Customs Service chemist who analyzed a white powdery substance seized from the defendant. The Second Circuit read into the federal business records provision an implied exception for investigative reports and reversed the evidentiary ruling of the trial court. See id. at 78.1
It is beyond dispute that the record involved in the present case is not admissible as a public record. This Court, however, on the basis of a conclusory offer of proof, treats the investigative report as a business record and disregards the language of Rule 803(8). It is clear that unless this Court accepts the interrelation between the two rules provisions, the specific exception for investigative reports in Rule 803(8) will become a virtual nullity. If an investigative report is admissible as a business record, the rule would authorize its admission when offered by the state as well as the defendant. If such a result occurs, the potentially alarming aspects of the rules would be realized rather than avoided. See Field and Murray, Maine Evidence § 803.8 at 219.
I would decline to accept the report as a business record. In the present case the presiding justice committed no error in excluding the investigative report. I would affirm the conviction.

. The Oates court held on the basis of federal legislative history that an investigative report "cannot satisfy standards of any hearsay exception if those reports are sought to be introduced against the accused.” Id. at 84. M.R.Evid. 803(8) and the official commentary does not distinguish between evidence offered by the state or the defendant.