Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 27-803

Current with changes through the 2024 First Special Legislative Session

Section 27-803 - Rule 803. Hearsay exceptions; enumerated; availability of declarant immaterial

Subject to the provisions of section 27-403, the following are not excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness:

(1) A statement describing or explaining an event or condition, made while or immediately after the declarant perceived it;

(2) A statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition;

(3) A statement of the declarant's then existing state of mind, emotion, sensation, or physical condition (such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, and bodily health), but not including a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless it relates to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of declarant's will;

(4) Statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment and describing medical history, or past or present symptoms, pain, or sensations, or the inception or general character of the cause or external source thereof insofar as reasonably pertinent to diagnosis or treatment;

(5) A memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable him or her to testify fully and accurately, shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in his or her 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;

(6)

(a) A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, or conditions, other than opinions or diagnoses, made at or near the time of such acts, events, or conditions, in the course of a regularly conducted activity, if it was the regular course of such activity to make such memorandum, report, record, or data compilation at the time of such act, event, or condition, or within a reasonable time thereafter, as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness or by a certification that complies with subdivision (11) or (12) of section 27-902 or with a statute permitting certification, unless the source of information or method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness. The circumstances of the making of such memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, including lack of personal knowledge by the entrant or maker, may be shown to affect its weight.

(b) A memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, or conditions, other than opinions or diagnoses, that was received or acquired in the regular course of business by an entity from another entity and has been incorporated into and kept in the regular course of business of the receiving or acquiring entity; that the receiving or acquiring entity typically relies upon the accuracy of the contents of the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation; and that the circumstances otherwise indicate the trustworthiness of the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness. Subdivision (6)(b) of this section shall not apply in any criminal proceeding;

(7) Evidence that a matter is not included in the memoranda, reports, records, or data compilations, in any form, kept in accordance with the provisions of subdivision (6) of this section to prove the nonoccurrence or nonexistence of the matter, if the matter was of a kind of which a memorandum, report, record, or data compilation was regularly made and preserved, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate a lack of trustworthiness;

(8) Upon reasonable notice to the opposing party prior to trial, records, reports, statements, or data compilations made by a public official or agency of facts required to be observed and recorded pursuant to a duty imposed by law, unless the sources of information or the method or circumstances of the investigation are shown by the opposing party to indicate a lack of trustworthiness;

(9) Records or data compilations, in any form, of births, fetal deaths, deaths, or marriages, if the report thereof was made to a public office pursuant to requirements of law;

(10) To prove the absence of a record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, or the nonoccurrence or nonexistence of a matter of which a record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, was regularly made and preserved by a public office or agency, evidence in the form of a certification in accordance with section 27-902, or testimony, that diligent search failed to disclose the record, report, statement, or data compilation or entry;

(11) Statements of births, marriages, divorces, deaths, legitimacy, ancestry, relationship by blood or marriage, or other similar facts of personal or family history, contained in a regularly kept record of a religious organization;

(12) Statements of fact contained in a certificate that the maker performed a marriage or other ceremony or administered a sacrament, made by a member of the clergy, public official, or other person authorized by the rules or practices of a religious organization or by law to perform the act certified, and purporting to have been issued at the time of the act or within a reasonable time thereafter;

(13) Statements of births, marriages, divorces, deaths, legitimacy, ancestry, relationship by blood or marriage, or other similar facts of personal or family history contained in family Bibles, genealogies, charts, engravings on rings, inscriptions on family portraits, engravings on urns, crypts, or tombstones or the like;

(14) The record of a document purporting to establish or affect an interest in property, as proof of the content of the original recorded document and its execution and delivery by each person by whom it purports to have been executed, if the record is a record of a public office and an applicable statute authorized the recording of documents of that kind in that office;

(15) A statement contained in a document purporting to establish or affect an interest in property if the matter stated was relevant to the purpose of the document, unless dealings with the property since the document was made have been inconsistent with the truth of the statement or the purport of the document;

(16) Statements in a document in existence thirty years or more whose authenticity is established;

(17) Market quotations, tabulations, lists, directories, or other published compilations, generally used and relied upon by the public or by persons in particular occupations;

(18) Statements contained in published treatises, periodicals, or pamphlets on a subject of history, medicine, or other science or art, established as a reliable authority by the testimony or admission of the witness or by other expert testimony or by judicial notice, to the extent called to the attention of an expert witness upon cross-examination or relied upon by the expert witness in direct examination. If admitted, the statements may be read into evidence but may not be received as exhibits;

(19) Reputation among members of his or her family by blood, adoption, or marriage, or among his or her associates, or in the community, concerning a person's birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, death, legitimacy, relationship by blood, adoption, or marriage, ancestry, or other similar fact of his or her personal or family history;

(20) Reputation in a community, arising before the controversy, as to boundaries of or customs affecting lands in the community, and reputation as to events of general history important to the community or state or nation in which located;

(21) Reputation of a person's character among his or her associates or in the community;

(22) Evidence of a final judgment, entered after a trial or upon a plea of guilty (but not upon a plea of nolo contendere), adjudging a person guilty of a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year, to prove any fact essential to sustain the judgment, but not including, when offered by the government in a criminal prosecution for purposes other than impeachment, judgments against a person other than the accused. The pendency of an appeal may be shown but does not affect admissibility;

(23) Judgments as proof of matters of personal, family, or general history, or boundaries, essential to the judgment, if the same would be provable by evidence of reputation; and

(24) A statement not specifically covered by any of the foregoing exceptions but having equivalent circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, if the court determines that (a) the statement is offered as evidence of a material fact, (b) the statement is more probative on the point for which it is offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts, and (c) the general purposes of these rules and the interests of justice will best be served by admission of the statement into evidence. A statement may not be admitted under this exception unless the proponent of it makes known to the adverse party, sufficiently in advance of the trial or hearing to provide the adverse party with a fair opportunity to prepare to meet it, his or her intention to offer the statement and the particulars of it, including the name and address of the declarant.

Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 27-803

Laws 1975, LB 279, § 57; Laws 1999, LB 64, § 1; Laws 2014, LB 788, § 7; Laws 2021, LB 57, § 1; Laws 2023, LB 50, § 3.

Amended by Laws 2023, LB 50,§ 3, eff. 9/2/2023.

Amended by Laws 2021, LB 57,§ 1, eff. 8/28/2021.

Amended by Laws 2014, LB 788,§ 7, eff. 7/18/2014.