Evidence — Present Sense Impression

As It Happens

Quinn, watching from a window, immediately phoned a friend, Lee, and said, "The truck is backing right into the red sedan as I speak." Quinn later recounts this at trial to prove the truck hit the sedan, and the opponent objects on hearsay grounds.

Law. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 803(1), a statement describing or explaining an event or condition, made while or immediately after the declarant perceived it, is not excluded by the rule against hearsay, regardless of the declarant's availability. The exception rests on the reliability of contemporaneity — there is no time to fabricate or to misremember — so a substantial delay between perceiving the event and describing it defeats it.

In one sentence, state whether Quinn's statement qualifies as a present sense impression under FRE 803(1).

one-sentence · ≤ 35 words

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