Tome v. United States

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Tome v. United States
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued October 5, 1994
Decided January 10, 1995
Full case nameMatthew Wayne Tome v. United States
Citations 513 U.S. 150 ( more )
115 S. Ct. 696; 130 L. Ed. 2d 574
Prior history 3 F.3d 342 (10th Cir. 1995) (reversed)
Subsequent history On remand, 61 F.3d 1446 (10th Cir. 1995)
Holding
For a prior consistent statement to be admissible under FRE 801(d)(1)(B), the statement must have been made before the motive to fabricate arose.
Court membership
Chief Justice
William Rehnquist
Associate Justices
John P. Stevens  · Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia  · Anthony Kennedy
David Souter  · Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg  · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority Kennedy, joined by Stevens, Scalia (except Part II-B), Souter, Ginsburg
Concurrence Scalia
Dissent Breyer, joined by Rehnquist, O'Connor, Thomas
Laws applied
FRE 801(d)(1)(B)

Tome v. United States, 513 U.S. 150 (1995), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that under Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 801(d)(1)(B), a prior consistent statement is not hearsay only if the statement was made before the motive to fabricate arose. [1]

Supreme Court of the United States Highest court in the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. Established pursuant to Article III of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, it has original jurisdiction over a small range of cases, such as suits between two or more states, and those involving ambassadors. It also has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all federal court and state court cases that involve a point of federal constitutional or statutory law. The Court has the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution or an executive act for being unlawful. However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The Court may decide cases having political overtones, but it has ruled that it does not have power to decide nonjusticiable political questions. Each year it agrees to hear about 100–150 of the more than 7,000 cases that it is asked to review.

First adopted in 1975, the Federal Rules of Evidence codify the evidence law that applies in United States federal courts. In addition, many states in the United States have either adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence, with or without local variations, or have revised their own evidence rules or codes to at least partially follow the federal rules.

Hearsay evidence is "an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted therein." In certain courts, hearsay evidence is inadmissible unless an exception to the Hearsay Rule applies.

Contents

Factual background

The defendant, Matthew Tome, was found guilty of sexually abusing his four-year-old daughter A.T. After her parents' divorce, A.T. was in Tome's primary physical custody, and she stayed with Tome on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. A.T.'s mother lived in Colorado. [2]

At trial, A.T. was six and a half years old and testified by short answers to leading questions. During cross-examination, the defense suggested that A.T. had fabricated the allegations against Tome because she wanted to go live with her mother. To rebut the charge of fabrication, the prosecution called six witnesses (a babysitter, A.T.'s mother, a social worker, and three pediatricians) that all testified to statements about the abuse that A.T. had made to them. The trial court admitted the statements under FRE 801, which reads:

In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination and may be followed by a redirect. Redirect examination, performed by the attorney or pro se individual who performed the direct examination, clarifies the witness' testimony provided during cross-examination including any subject matter raised during cross-examination but not discussed during direct examination. Recross examination addresses the witness' testimony discussed in redirect by the opponent. Depending on the judge's discretion, opponents are allowed multiple opportunities to redirect and recross examine witnesses.

(d) A statement is not hearsay if -

(1) The declarant testifies at the trial or hearing and is subject to cross-examination concerning the statement, and the statement is

(B) consistent with the declarant's testimony and is offered to rebut an express or implied charge against the declarant of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive . . . [3]

The Tenth Circuit affirmed Tome's conviction, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Certiorari, often abbreviated cert. in the United States, is a process for seeking judicial review and a writ issued by a court that agrees to review. A certiorari is issued by a superior court, directing an inferior court, tribunal, or other public authority to send the record of a proceeding for review.

Opinion of the Court

Majority opinion

Justice Kennedy, joined by Justices Stevens, Scalia, Souter, and Ginsburg, delivered the opinion for a majority of the court except for Part II-B, a plurality where Justice Kennedy was joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg. The Court noted that not all prior consistent statements by a witness were excluded from the bar against hearsay evidence. The text of FRE 801(d)(1)(B) accorded not hearsay status only prior consistent statements by a testifying witness used to rebut a charge of recent fabrication. The Court reasoned that to properly rebut a charge of fabrication, a prior consistent statement would need to have predated the motive to fabricate. Otherwise prior consistent statements would be admissible to rebut other forms of impeachment, and this would ignore the common law temporal requirement that the Advisory Committee Note said was adopted by the rule. [4]

The Court found this approach consistent with the Federal Rules' liberal approach to admissibility, and rejected the Government's advocacy for a general balancing test for hearsay. [5]

In the present case, the purported motivation to fabricate arose when A.T. was put in her father's custody in 1988, before the prior consistent statements in 1990. Finding that the statements from the other witnesses should not have been admissible under FRE 801(d)(1)(B), the Court reversed Tome's conviction and remanded the case. [6]

Plurality opinion

Part II-B represented only a plurality of Justices, and discussed how the Advisory Committee notes for the Federal Rules supported the holding. [7]

Justice Scalia's concurrence

Justice Scalia, who joined in the judgment of the Court and Kennedy's opinion except for Part II-B, wrote separately to emphasize that the Advisory Committee Notes should not be relied upon when interpreting the Federal Rules of Evidence. [8]

Justice Breyer's dissent

In a dissent joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O'Connor, and Justice Thomas, Justice Breyer characterized the case as one about relevance and not hearsay. Breyer argued that the timing of the alleged motive to fabricate should go to the probative force of the testimony, not its reliability. Breyer thought that a post-motive consistent statement could be admitted to rebut a charge of fabrication, but that the probative force of the statement would simply be diminished. Breyer argued that FRE 801(d)(1)(B) could simply be a recognition that juries can have difficulty in separating the impeaching and substantive uses of hearsay statements, and so the rule declared as not hearsay prior consistent statements used to rebut charges of fabrication. In that sense, the usefulness of the Rule did not rest on the majority's timing requirement. [9]

Subsequent history

On remand, the Tenth Circuit found that some of the hearsay admitted in the original trial was admitted erroneously under the standard enunciated by the Supreme Court. Finding that the error was not harmless, the Tenth Circuit reversed and remanded the case. [10]

Impact

As an interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence, Tome is not binding on state courts. [11] In states including Montana and Nebraska, courts have held that a statement fulfilling the premotive requirement of Tome are admissible as both impeachment and substantive evidence. [12] [13]

Other states including Colorado and the First Circuit have held that prior consistent statements that do not fulfill the premotive requirement of Tome may still be admitted for rehabilitative purposes. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

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Hearsay is an out-of-court statement being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. The Federal Rules of Evidence prohibit introducing hearsay statements during applicable federal court proceedings, unless one of nearly thirty exemptions or exceptions applies. The Federal Rules of Evidence define hearsay as:

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An admission in the law of evidence is a prior statement by an adverse party which can be admitted into evidence over a hearsay objection. In general, admissions are admissible in criminal and civil cases.

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References

  1. ↑ Mueller, Christopher and Kirkpatrick, Laird. Evidence Under the Rules: Text, Cases, and Problems, Sixth Edition. Aspen Publishers, New York: 2008, p. 171-72.
  2. ↑ Tome v. United States, 513 U.S. 150, 153-56 (1995).
  3. ↑ Federal Rules of Evidence, 2010-2011 Edition. West. St. Paul, MN: 2010, p. 150.
  4. ↑ Tome, 513 U.S. at 159.
  5. ↑ Tome, 513 U.S. at 164.
  6. ↑ Tome, 513 U.S. at 167.
  7. ↑ Tome, 513 U.S. at 161.
  8. ↑ Tome, 513 U.S. at 168.
  9. ↑ Tome, 513 U.S. at 169-76.
  10. ↑ United States v. Tome, 61F.3d1446 (10th Cir.1995).
  11. ↑ Mueller & Kirkpatrick, p. 78
  12. ↑ State v. Veis, 962 P.2d 1153, 1156 (Mont. 1998)
  13. ↑ State v. Morris, 554 N.W.2d 627, 633 (Neb. 1996)
  14. ↑ People v. Eppens, 979 P.2d 14 (Colo. 1999)
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