State v. Collins

In State v. Collins (Wash.App. 1995) 76 Wn. App. 496, 886 P.2d 243, 245, the court addressed a fact situation in which: "One caller stated he or she wanted to pick up something and the other stated she needed a half. The truth of the callers' statements, that they really did need or want something, was not at issue. However, implicit in the callers' statements is the belief that they could get the drugs they sought through defendant or at the apartment. This implied belief provides the evidentiary value of the statements." The court went on to note that the hearsay rule "itself does not differentiate between express and implied assertions. However, the Advisory Committee's Notes to Federal Rule 801 expressly exclude implied assertions from the hearsay rule. 'Verbal conduct which is assertive but offered as a basis for inferring something other than the matter asserted, is excluded from the definition of hearsay.' 'The key to the definition is that nothing is an assertion unless intended to be one.'" (Ibid. quoting Advisory Committee Note to Subdivision (a) of Federal Rule of Evidence 801.) The Washington court went on to say that "a person does not normally intend to assert an implied belief," and hence, "the statements . . . were not hearsay in the manner they were used at trial, and the court did not err in admitting them." (Ibid.)