## Facts

- Frederick Leon Dotson was convicted in federal district court.
- At trial, the government introduced a police report documenting a chain of statements: the report recorded that Sergeant Anderson said that witness Young said he carried marijuana for Dotson “two or three times a week.”
- The district court admitted the police report as a prior consistent statement under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(B) to rebut impeachment of Young.
- Dotson objected that the report contained hearsay within hearsay and required a valid basis for admissibility at each level under Federal Rule of Evidence 805.
- On direct appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed and stated that Rule 805 did not apply because prior consistent statements are “not hearsay” under Rule 801(d)(1).
- Dotson petitioned for rehearing limited to the court’s Rule 805 analysis.

## Issues

1. Whether Rule 805’s multiple-hearsay requirement applies when one layer of a composite statement is classified as “not hearsay” under Rule 801(d)(1)(B).
2. Whether treating a layer as “non-hearsay” under Rule 801(d) excuses the remaining layers from independently satisfying a hearsay exception or other admissibility basis.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit granted rehearing in part to revise its evidentiary analysis and otherwise denied the petition.
- The court vacated its prior reasoning that Rule 805 “simply does not apply” to prior consistent statements under Rule 801(d)(1)(B).
- The court held that, for Rule 805 purposes, a Rule 801(d) “non-hearsay” statement functions like a layer that satisfies an exception, but other layers still must independently satisfy an exception or other admissibility ground.
- Applying that framework, the report contained two hearsay layers: (1) the report’s recounting of what Anderson said and (2) Young’s underlying statement.
- Even if Young’s statement qualified as “non-hearsay” under Rule 801(d)(1)(B), the Anderson layer remained and did not qualify under any hearsay exception identified by the court.
- The conviction remained affirmed; only the reasoning regarding Rules 801(d) and 805 was corrected.

## Legal Principles

- Rule 805 applies to composite statements even when one level is “not hearsay” under Rule 801(d).
- A Rule 801(d)(1)(B) prior consistent statement may satisfy one layer of a multiple-hearsay statement, but it does not automatically render other layers admissible.
- Each level of a multi-layer statement must be separately justified by a hearsay exception, exclusion, or other valid admissibility basis.
- A court must identify and analyze each layer of hearsay in documents such as police reports rather than treating a Rule 801(d) classification as dispositive for the entire document.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit revised its evidentiary analysis to hold that Rule 805 governs multi-layer statements even when one layer is “non-hearsay” under Rule 801(d)(1)(B), requiring independent admissibility for each remaining layer, while leaving Dotson’s conviction affirmed.


United States v. Dotson, 821 F.2d 1034 (5th Cir. 1987)