Hearsay

Hearsay is a statement by someone other than a witness testifying as to his personal knowledge. Literally it comes from "hear it said," which is inherently unreliable as to the truth what was supposedly said. Gossip is a type of hearsay.

Hearsay is typically excluded from legal proceedings due to its lack of reliability for reasons including the following:

• the speaker of the hearsay may have been uninformed
• the speaker of the hearsay may have been lying

There are limited exceptions that do allow the admission of hearsay as evidence when special circumstances make the hearsay more reliable than usual. These exceptions include, for example:

• admissions against one's own interest (in the federal rules, this is not considered hearsay at all)
• dying words