Kenechukwu Okocha (American University Washington College of Law) has posted Hearsay in High Definition: Body-Worn Cameras and the Future of Intimate Partner Violence Prosecutions (Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 115, forthcoming 2027) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Technological advances in police responses to intimate partner violence (IPV) have outpaced evidentiary hearsay rules. Specifically, the rapid adoption of body-worn cameras (BWCs), fueled by racial justice and police reform advocates, has produced previously unavailable, vivid, and timely recordings of IPV victims’ accounts of abuse. Unfortunately, state and federal rules governing hearsay often prevent juries from considering these out-of-court statements. Such restrictions carry particular force in IPV cases, where victims frequently recant or decline to testify at trial due to abuser manipulation or distrust of the criminal justice system. Courts and legislatures have eased some evidentiary restrictions in IPV cases in recognition of the persistent problem of victim nonparticipation. Nevertheless, existing doctrine has not fully addressed how hearsay rules should apply to victims’ statements captured on BWCs in IPV investigations. This Article offers two proposals to close that gap. First, courts should interpret existing hearsay exemptions, including prior inconsistent statements, excited utterances, and statements of identification, to more readily encompass accounts of IPV victims recorded on BWCs. Second, legislators should enact a specific hearsay exception designed to admit these recordings. Together, the two reforms allow evidentiary doctrine to appropriately modernize with the burgeoning use of BWCs in IPV prosecutions.
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