Rule 2:806.ATTACKING AND SUPPORTING CREDIBILITY OF HEARSAY DECLARANT

Rule 2:806 extends the impeachment and rehabilitation rules to declarants who never take the stand. When a hearsay statement has been admitted in evidence, the declarant behind that statement becomes a target for credibility attack just as if the declarant were sitting in the witness chair, even though the declarant is not present and cannot be cross-examined directly.

The rule’s test ties directly back to the impeachment provisions elsewhere in this article: any evidence that would be admissible to attack a witness’s credibility — bias under Rule 2:610, prior convictions under Rule 2:609, reputation evidence under Rule 2:608, or the other methods listed in Rule 2:607 — may be used against a hearsay declarant to the same extent it could be used against a live witness.

And once a party attacks the declarant’s credibility this way, the rule allows the credibility to be supported using whatever evidence would be admissible to rehabilitate a testifying witness under the same circumstances — for example, a prior consistent statement admissible under Rule 2:801(d)(2). Because the declarant is absent, this two-way exchange happens entirely through evidence about the declarant, rather than through the declarant’s own responses on the stand.