320
Opinion of the Court
grand jury testimony. Although this testimony constituted hearsay, see Rule 801(c), the respondents argued that it fell within the hearsay exception in Rule 804(b)(1) for former testimony of unavailable witnesses.
The District Court refused to admit the grand jury testimony. It observed that Rule 804(b)(1) permits admission of former testimony against a party at trial only when that party had a "similar motive to develop the testimony by direct, cross, or redirect examination." The District Court held that the United States did not have this motive, stating that the "motive of a prosecutor in questioning a witness before the grand jury in the investigatory stages of a case is far different from the motive of a prosecutor in conducting the trial." App. to Pet. for Cert. 51a. A jury subsequently convicted the respondents of the RICO counts and other federal offenses.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, holding that the District Court had erred in excluding DeMatteis' and Bruno's grand jury testimony. 937 F. 2d 797 (1991). Although the Court of Appeals recognized that "the government may have had no motive . . . to impeach . . . Bruno or DeMatteis" before the grand jury, it concluded that "the government's motive in examining the witnesses . . . was irrelevant." Id., at 806. The Court of Appeals decided that, in order to maintain "adversarial fairness," Rule 804(b)(1)'s similar motive element should "evaporat[e]" when the Government obtains immunized testimony in a grand jury proceeding from a witness who refuses to testify at trial. Ibid. We granted certiorari, 502 U. S. 1056 (1992), and now reverse and remand.
II
The hearsay rule prohibits admission of certain statements made by a declarant other than while testifying at trial. See Rules 801(c) (hearsay definition), 802 (hearsay rule). The parties acknowledge that the hearsay rule, standing by itself,
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