Original Article: "Hearsay" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay
Hearsay is information gathered by one person from another person concerning some event, condition, or thing of which the first person had no direct experience. When submitted as evidence, such statements are called hearsay evidence. As a legal term, "hearsay" can also have the narrower meaning of the use of such information as evidence to prove the truth of what is asserted.
Such use of "hearsay evidence" in court is generally not allowed.
{This prohibition} is called the {hearsay rule}.
For example, a witness says "Susan told me Tom was in town" as the witness's evidence to the fact that Tom was in town. Since the witness does not offer in this statement the personal knowledge of the fact, this witness statement would be hearsay evidence to the fact that Tom was in town, and not admissible. Only when Susan testifies herself in the current judicial proceeding that she saw Tom in town, that Susan's testimony becomes admissible evidence to the fact that Tom was in town. However, a witness statement "Susan told me Tom was in town" can be admissible as evidence in the case against Susan when she is accused of spreading defamatory rumors about Tom, because now the witness has personal knowledge of the fact that Susan said (i.e., pronounced the defamatory words) "Tom was in town" in the presence of the witness and it is an opposing party’s statement that constitutes a verbal act. Double hearsay is when a hearsay statement offered as evidence contains another hearsay statement.
For example, a witness wants to testify that: "a very reliable man informed me that Wools-Sampson told him". The statements of the {very reliable man} and Wools-Sampson are both hearsay submissions on the part of the witness, and the second hearsay (the statement of Wools-Sampson) depends on the first (the statement of the {very reliable man}). In a court, both layers of hearsay must be found separately admissible. In this example, the {first hearsay also comes from an anonymous source} and the admissibility of an {anonymous statement requires additional legal burden of proof}.
Many jurisdictions that generally disallow hearsay evidence in courts permit the more widespread use of hearsay in non-judicial hearings.
