Reply #220: Here's a link to Conyers' letter. Eaton's affidavit is appended to it.

[thanatonautos]

Conyers letter to the FBI and Hocking County prosecutor.

What you say you were told about the case of your
accident -- by the way, very sorry to hear about
that, and I hope you are doing OK -- I think does
come under a common exception to the hearsay rule.

You are probably talking about admissions by the
truck driver which were made against his own interests
... I think courts reason that such admissions
aren't made unless they are true. There is then
no problem in having a witness testify that
they heard the truck driver say XYZ. In addition,
there are corroborating facts in your case, like,
there definitely was an accident, the driver was
definitely driving the truck, and so on.

With the Eaton affidavit I'm not sure that
it's quite the same thing. But I did wonder
whether what she says about what the Triad
employee said might actually be admissible
for different reasons.

He hasn't necessarily made any admissions
against his own interests ... you'ld
have to assume he was conscious that he
was committing a crime to conclude that,
I guess. Would one expect a random computer
technician employed by Triad to know that posting
a cheat sheet is against Ohio election statutes?
Maybe ... maybe not, I don't know.

But depending upon the state, I think
that sometimes witnesses are allowed to
describe everything that was said and done
during some event that is the subject of
a trial when it goes toward establishing
some element of a crime. It seems like
Eaton's testimony is more along those
lines.

See what you think.