Agent’s Out-of-Court Statements Could Constitute Admissions by a Party Opponent
Below is an example in a criminal trial of the exception to the hearsay rule referred to as admissions against party opponents when a party’s agent makes an out-of-court statement. Check out this article and this article for more on this important hearsay exception embodied in Florida Statute s. 90.803(18).
In Osorio v. State of Florida, 41 Fla.L.WeeklyD547b (Fla. 4th DCA 2016), the police used a confidential informant to make an arrest in a drug case. The confidential informant happened to be a co-worker of the defendant (that had previously been arrested on an unrelated drug charge and turned into an informant to obtain credit in his prosecution). The defendant was relying on an entrapment defense. During the defendant’s cross-examination of a detective at trial, the court refused to allow the detective to testify about an issue that the co-worker / informant relayed to the detective. Then, when the defendant took to stand to testify, the trial court refused to allow the defendant to testify about statements his co-worker / informant made. The court precluded this testimony based on the hearsay rule since both the detective and defendant would be testifying about out-of-court statements from the co-worker / informant offered for the truth of the matter asserted.
Could the co-worker / informant, acting as an agent of the police, be classified as a party-opponent to fall within the hearsay exception known as admissions against party opponents. The court said yes!
“[A]n agent is one who consents to act on behalf of some person, with that person’s acknowledgment, and is subject to that person’s control.” Osorio, supra, citing Goldschmidt v. Holman, 571 So.2d 422, 424, n.5 (Fla. 1990).
The court held that the co-worker / informant was serving as an agent since the police encouraged his involvement including setting up the drug-buy that led to the defendant’s arrest in furtherance of obtaining credit in his prosecution. As an agent, the co-worker / informant’s out-of-court statements did fall within the hearsay exception known as admissions against a party opponent. The statements made by the co-worker / informant were statements by the party’s [the state / police] agent concerning a matter within the scope of his agency and made during the existence of the relationship. See Fla. Stat. s. 90.803(18). The court held it was error not to allow the defendant to introduce these out-of-court statements that restricted the defendant’s ability to put on his entrapment defense.
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