“Word of mouth” isn't actually accepted in court as evidence—it's not firsthand testimony. If you hear someone talking about what they saw, you can't go to court and testify about it; the court has to call them as a witness directly.
A juror’s word of mouth is testimony from the witness stand. What Are Three Exceptions To The Hearsay Rule? No matter whether the witness is present as a witness, the following are not excluded by the rule against hearsay: (1) Present Sense Impression.
The Court reasoned that the “district attorney was not restricted to verbal descriptions by the various witnesses in a case where the construction of the instrument was somewhat exceptional, and a much more accurate idea of its true character could be conveyed to the jury by means of a model than by word of mouth” (192 NY at 482).
Hearsay evidence coming before the Special Court is of an even more extraordinary nature as in many cases it is not just second-hand but third and fourth-hand accounts. In countries with a largely rural population, such as Sierra Leone, the majority of information travels by word of mouth.
Without [being in] writing, the oral contract can be easily disputed by either side, and it will be very hard, and potentially costly in court, to prove what the deal actually was." Oral contracts are a common way of doing small, casual deals. But if you're creating a contract related to your business, writing is best.
The idea is essentially to stop rumours or second-hand information from being tendered as fact, both to prevent distortion of the facts and to prevent a lie from being taken as fact. Ideally then, any evidence should come by word of mouth from a witness testifying in court. However, in an electronic age this is not always possible.
Text messages aren’t automatically admissible in court. Steps must be taken to properly preserve the texts as evidence or they won’t be allowed to be presented in your case. In this week’s two-minute tip Tisha explains how you can preserve your texts so they can be used in a court of law. Watch the video below to learn more.
On the other hand, admissibility is the duty of the court to decide whether an evidence should be received by the court according to Augustine Paul JC in the case of Public Prosecutor v. Dato Seri Anwar bin Ibrahim. In general, a relevant fact given in evidence under Section 5 to 55 is admissible in the court.
The declaration made by the dead person is treated as evidence and is admissible in the court of law. In India, Dying Declaration is based on the Latin maxim Nemo Mariturus Presumuntur Mentri – translated into English- “No one at the point of death is presumed to lie” which means “Man Will Not Meet His Maker With Lying On His Mouth”.
