2022 Georgia Code
Title 24 - Evidence
Chapter 8 - Hearsay
Article 1 - General Provisions
§ 24-8-803. Hearsay Rule Exceptions; Availability of Declarant Immaterial

The following shall not be excluded by the hearsay rule, even though the declarant is available as a witness:

1. Present sense impression.    A statement describing or explaining an event or condition made while the declarant was perceiving the event or condition or immediately thereafter;
2. Excited utterance.    A statement relating to a startling event or condition made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement caused by the event or condition;
3. Then existing mental, emotional, or physical condition.    A statement of the declarant’s then existing state of mind, emotion, sensation, or physical condition, such as intent, plan, motive, design, mental feeling, pain, and bodily health, but not including a statement of memory or belief to prove the fact remembered or believed unless such statements relate to the execution, revocation, identification, or terms of the declarant’s will and not including a statement of belief as to the intent of another person;
4. Statements for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment.    Statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment and describing medical history, or past or present symptoms, pain, or sensations, or the inception or general character of the cause or external source thereof insofar as reasonably pertinent to diagnosis or treatment;
5. Recorded recollection.    A memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable the witness to testify fully and accurately shown to have been made or adopted by the witness when the matter was fresh in the witness’s memory and to reflect that knowledge correctly. If admitted, the memorandum or record may be read into evidence but shall not itself be received as an exhibit unless offered by an adverse party;
6. Records of regularly conducted activity.    Unless the source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness and subject to the provisions of Chapter 7 of this title, a memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses, if (A) made at or near the time of the described acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses; (B) made by, or from information transmitted by, a person with personal knowledge and a business duty to report; (C) kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity; and (D) it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness or by certification that complies with paragraph (11) or (12) of Code Section 24-9-902 or by any other statute permitting certification. The term “business” as used in this paragraph includes any business, institution, association, profession, occupation, and calling of every kind, whether or not conducted for profit. Public records and reports shall be admissible under paragraph (8) of this Code section and shall not be admissible under this paragraph;
7. Absence of entry in records kept in accordance with paragraph (6) of this Code section.    Evidence that a matter is not included in the memoranda, reports, records, or data compilations, in any form, kept in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (6) of this Code section, to prove the nonoccurrence or nonexistence of the matter, if the matter was of a kind of which a memorandum, report, record, or data compilation was regularly made and preserved, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness;
8. Public records and reports.    Except as otherwise provided by law, public records, reports, statements, or data compilations, in any form, of public offices, setting forth:
   1. The activities of the public office;
   2. Matters observed pursuant to duty imposed by law as to which matters there was a duty to report, excluding, however, against the accused in criminal proceedings, matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel in connection with an investigation; or
   3. In civil proceedings and against the state in criminal proceedings, factual findings resulting from an investigation made pursuant to authority granted by law, unless the sources of information or other circumstances indicate lack of trustworthiness;
9. Records of vital statistics.    Records or data compilations, in any form, of births, fetal deaths, deaths, or marriages, if the report thereof was made to a public office pursuant to requirements of law;
10. Absence of public record or entry.    To prove the absence of a record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, or the nonoccurrence or nonexistence of a matter of which a record, report, statement, or data compilation, in any form, was regularly made and preserved by a public office, evidence in the form of a certification in accordance with Code Section 24-9-902, or testimony, that diligent search failed to disclose the record, report, statement, or data compilation, or entry;
11. Records of religious organizations.    Statements of birth, marriages, divorces, deaths, legitimacy, ancestry, relationship by blood or marriage, or other similar facts of personal or family history, contained in a regularly kept record of a religious organization;
12. Marriage, baptismal, and similar certificates.    Statements of fact contained in a certificate that the maker performed a marriage or other ceremony or administered a sacrament, made by a clergyman, public official, or other person authorized by the rules or practices of a religious organization or by law to perform the act certified and purporting to have been issued at the time of the act or within a reasonable time thereafter;
13. Family records.    Statements of fact concerning personal or family history contained in family Bibles, genealogies, charts, engravings on rings, inscriptions on family portraits, engravings on urns, crypts, or tombstones, or the like;
14. Records of documents affecting an interest in property.    The record of a document purporting to establish or affect an interest in property, as proof of the content of the original recorded document and its execution and delivery by each person by whom it purports to have been executed, if the record is a record of a public office and an applicable law authorizes the recording of documents of that kind in such office;
15. Statements in documents affecting an interest in property.    A statement contained in a document purporting to establish or affect an interest in property if the matter stated was relevant to the purpose of the document, unless dealings with the property since the document was made have been inconsistent with the truth of the statement or the purport of the document;
16. Statements in ancient documents.    Statements in a document in existence 20 years or more the authenticity of which is established;
17. Market reports and commercial publications.    Market quotations, tabulations, lists, directories, or other published compilations generally used and relied upon by the public or by persons in the witness’s particular occupation;
18. Learned treatises.    To the extent called to the attention of an expert witness upon cross-examination, statements contained in published treatises, periodicals, or pamphlets, whether published electronically or in print, on a subject of history, medicine, or other science or art, established as a reliable authority by the testimony or admission of the witness, by other expert testimony, or by judicial notice. If admitted, the statements may be used for cross-examination of an expert witness and read into evidence but shall not be received as exhibits;
19. Reputation concerning personal or family history.    Reputation among members of a person’s family by blood, adoption, or marriage or among a person’s associates or in the community concerning a person’s birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, death, legitimacy, relationship by blood, adoption, or marriage, ancestry, or other similar fact of the person’s personal or family history;
20. Reputation concerning boundaries or general history.    Reputation in a community, arising before the controversy, as to boundaries of or customs affecting lands in the community and reputation as to events of general history important to the community or state or nation in which such lands are located;
21. Reputation as to character.    Reputation of a person’s character among associates or in the community;
22. Judgment of previous conviction.    Evidence of a final judgment, entered after a trial or upon a plea of guilty but not upon a plea of nolo contendere, adjudging a person guilty of a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year to prove any fact essential to sustain the judgment, but not including, when offered by the state in a criminal prosecution for purposes other than impeachment, judgments against persons other than the accused. The pendency of an appeal may be shown but shall not affect admissibility; or
23. Judgment as to personal, family, or general history or boundaries.    Judgments as proof of matters of personal, family, or general history or boundaries essential to the judgment, if the same would be provable by evidence of reputation.

History. Code 1981, § 24-8-803 , enacted by Ga. L. 2011, p. 99, § 2/HB 24.

Cross references.

Classification of confidential and privileged materials from department and county boards of health, § 31-5-5.

Certified copies of vital records, § 31-10-26.

Acquiescence as establishing dividing line in real property, § 44-4-6.

Transmittal of copy of exempted real property to other counties and recordation, § 44-13-11 .

Exceptions to the rule against hearsay—regardless of whether the declarant is available as a witness, Fed. R. Evid. 803.

Law reviews.

For article advocating admissibility of business entries, see 14 Ga. B.J. 7 (1951).

For article analyzing Georgia business entries provisions, see 4 Mercer L. Rev. 313 (1953).

For article discussing exceptions to the hearsay rule and advocating elimination of the res gestae exception, see 5 Mercer L. Rev. 257 (1954).

For article, “Business Entries as Evidence,” see 16 Ga. B.J. 383 (1954).

For article, “Decisions Under the Georgia Business Records Act of 1952,” see 21 Ga. B.J. 211 (1958).

For article, “Evidence from Computers,” see 8 Ga. L. Rev. 562 (1974).

For article, “The Demise of the Corroboration Requirement — Its History in Georgia Rape Law,” see 26 Emory L.J. 805 (1977).

For article, “The Admissibility of Computer-Generated Evidence in Georgia,” see 18 Ga. St. B.J. 137 (1982).

For article, “The Need For a Special Exception to the Hearsay Rule in Child Sexual Abuse Cases,” see 21 Ga. St. B.J. 50 (1984).

For article, “An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Statements to Mental Health Professionals Under the Diagnosis or Treatment Hearsay Exception,” see 33 Ga. L. Rev. 353 (1999).

For article, “Evidence,” see 53 Mercer L. Rev. 281 (2001).

For article, “State of Emergency: Why Georgia’s Standard of Care in Emergency Rooms is Harmful to Your Health,” see 45 Ga. L. Rev. 275 (2010).

For article, “Evidence,” see 27 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. 1 (2011).

For article, “Georgia’s New Evidence Code: After the Celebration, a Serious Review of Anticipated Subjects of Litigation to be Brought on by the New Legislation,” see 64 Mercer L. Rev. 1 (2012).

For annual survey on evidence law, see 64 Mercer L. Rev. 137 (2012).

For annual survey on insurance law, see 64 Mercer L. Rev. 151 (2012).

For article, “Symposium on Evidence Reform: The Curious Case of Differing Literary Emphases: The Contrast Between the Use of Scientific Publications at Pretrial Daubert Hearings and at Trial,” see 47 Ga. L. Rev. 837 (2013).

For annual survey on evidence, see 65 Mercer L. Rev. 125 (2013).

For annual survey of evidence law, see 67 Mercer L. Rev. 63 (2015).

For article, “2014 Georgia Corporation and Business Organization Case Law Developments,” see 20 Ga. St. Bar. J. 26 (April 2015).

For annual survey on evidence law, see 71 Mercer L. Rev. 103 (2019).

For article, “Confronting Memory Loss,” see 55 Ga. L. Rev. 95 (2020).

For article with annual survey on evidence, see 73 Mercer L. Rev. 111 (2021).

For note discussing res gestae, see 3 Ga. B.J. 69 (1940).

For note, “Hypnosis in Court: A Memory Aid for Witnesses,” see 1 Ga. L. Rev. 268 (1967).

For comment on Knudsen v. Duffee-Freeman, Inc., 95 Ga. App. 872 , 99 S.E.2d 370 , 374 (1957), holding that the Georgia business records as evidence statute does not authorize the introduction into evidence of papers containing the opinion of experts or physicians when the party in whose interest the papers are offered is not allowed to examine their author, see 20 Ga. B.J. 381 (1958).

For comment on Yarbrough v. Cantex Mfg. Co., 97 Ga. App. 392 , 103 S.E.2d 130 (1958), see 22 Ga. B.J. 100 (1959).

For comment on Smith v. Morning News, Inc., 99 Ga. App. 547 , 109 S.E.2d 639 (1959), see 22 Ga. B.J. 380 (1960).

For comment on Argonaut Ins. Co. v. Allen, 123 Ga. App. 741 , 182 S.E.2d 508 (1971), upholding admission of psychiatric opinion based on subjective declarations of patient, see 8 Ga. St. B.J. 554 (1972).