Commonwealth v. Brady
Commonwealth v. Brady, 507 A.2d 66 (Pa. 1986), is a case decided by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in 1986 which overruled close to two centuries of decisional law in Pennsylvania and established a common law exception to the rule against hearsay.
The Rule of Law
The decision stands for the proposition that the recorded, adopted statement of a witness to a crime which is inconsistent with her testimony at trial is properly admitted for both purposes of impeachment and as substantive evidence, i.e. "for its truth."[1] In Commonwealth v. Lively, 610 A.2d 7 (Pa. 1992), the rule was extended with respect to ‘‘verbatim contemporaneous recording[s] of . . . oral statement[s],’’ provided the ‘‘recordings’’ are electronic, audiotape, or videotape.[2]
Application
Prior to the Supreme Court's decision in Brady, a criminal defendant could obtain a judgment of acquittal when the Commonwealth's case relied completely or principally on out of court statements by witnesses.[3] The typical scenario would involve a witness that recanted or disavowed an earlier statement made to police officers concerning the defendant's liability. Under Brady and its progeny, it is then for the finder of fact to determine whether the witness is telling the truth now, or whether the witness was being truthful when he or she gave the first statement to the police.
References
- The Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence are available online here.
- The Federal Rules of Evidence are available here.
Footnotes
- ^ For an explanation of the meaning of substantive evidence, see Hearsay.
- ^ See also Commonwealth v. Kimbell available here.
- ^ A criminal defendant's out of court statement is always admissable for its truth, i.e. substantive evidence, as a party opponent admission. Note that under the Federal Rules, a party's statement is not hearsay while under the Pennsylvania rules a party's statement is admissable hearsay.