Tome v. United States
513 U.S. 150 (1995)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
Under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(B), a witness's prior consistent statement is admissible to rebut a charge of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive only if the statement was made before the alleged motive to fabricate arose.
Facts:
- Petitioner Tome and his ex-wife divorced in 1988, and a tribal court awarded them joint custody of their daughter, A.T., with Tome having primary physical custody.
- In 1989, the mother unsuccessfully petitioned the court for primary custody of A.T.
- During the summer of 1990, A.T. was in her mother's custody by court order.
- On August 27, 1990, while A.T. was still with her mother, the mother contacted Colorado authorities alleging that Tome had sexually abused A.T.
- Following this, A.T. made seven out-of-court statements to various individuals, including her babysitter, mother, a social worker, and three pediatricians, describing the alleged abuse by Tome.
- The defense's theory at trial was that A.T. fabricated the abuse allegations because she desired to live with her mother, a motive that arose during the ongoing custody dispute.
Procedural Posture:
- Tome was charged with sexual abuse of a child and tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico.
- At trial, the government introduced testimony from six witnesses recounting A.T.'s prior out-of-court statements, arguing they were admissible under FRE 801(d)(1)(B) to rebut the defense's charge that A.T. fabricated the story to live with her mother.
- The defense objected on the grounds that the statements were made after the alleged motive to fabricate arose.
- The district court (trial court) overruled the objection and admitted the statements.
- A jury convicted Tome.
- Tome (appellant) appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which affirmed the conviction, holding that the premotive requirement is not absolute.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a split among the circuits.
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(B), are a witness's prior consistent statements admissible to rebut a charge of recent fabrication or improper motive if those statements were made after the alleged motive to fabricate arose?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice Kennedy
No. A prior consistent statement offered to rebut a charge of recent fabrication or improper motive is only admissible if it was made before the motive to fabricate arose. Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(B) codifies the prevailing common-law temporal requirement. The Rule's language, which mirrors common-law phrasing, is specifically designed to rebut the charge that a motive caused the testimony; a statement made after the motive exists does not logically rebut this charge and instead serves only to bolster the witness. The Advisory Committee's Notes confirm the intent to carry over the common-law premotive rule, as they do not indicate any departure from this long-standing principle. Admitting post-motive statements would risk shifting the trial's focus from in-court testimony to a parade of out-of-court statements, undermining the carefully limited scope of the hearsay exception.
Concurring - Justice Scalia
No. The judgment is correct, but the majority's reliance on the Advisory Committee's Notes as evidence of the drafters' 'intent' is misguided. The notes are persuasive scholarly commentary, but they are not an authoritative source for interpreting the Rule's meaning. The text of Rule 801(d)(1)(B) itself, when read in the context of the established common law it tracks, is sufficient to conclude that the premotive requirement is embedded within the Rule, as any other interpretation would not make logical sense.
Dissenting - Justice Breyer
Yes. The Court should have affirmed, as the premotive rule should not be an absolute bar to admissibility. Rule 801(d)(1)(B) is a hearsay rule, not a relevance rule; it simply allows certain statements, if otherwise admissible for rehabilitation, to be used for their substantive truth. The premotive rule is a common-law rule of relevance that was superseded by the Federal Rules' liberal and flexible approach to admissibility. A trial court should have the discretion under Rules 401 and 403 to determine if a post-motive statement is relevant to rebut a charge of fabrication, especially in circumstances where a witness may have had a stronger motive to tell the truth despite the alleged motive to lie.
Analysis:
This decision resolves a circuit split by establishing a bright-line temporal requirement for the admissibility of prior consistent statements under FRE 801(d)(1)(B). The Court rejected a more flexible, case-by-case balancing approach, opting instead to import the strict common-law rule into the Federal Rules of Evidence. This holding provides clarity and predictability for litigators but curtails the discretion of trial judges to admit post-motive statements, even if they possess strong indicia of reliability. The case reinforces the principle that the Federal Rules of Evidence, despite their liberal thrust, are interpreted as carrying forward established common-law doctrine absent an explicit statement to the contrary.
Unlock the full brief for Tome v. United States