Competency to Testify in General

(a) General rule of competency. Every person is competent to be a witness unless these rules or an applicable statute provide otherwise. (b) Incompetence of a witness. A person is not competent to testify as a witness if the court finds that the witness lacks sufficient capacity to observe, remember and narrate as well as understand the duty to tell the truth. 2016 NHRE Update Committee Note The amendments made by supreme court order dated April 20, 2017, effective July 1, 2017, made stylistic changes to the rule. The amendments retain subsection (b), which is not included in Federal Rule of Evidence 601. Subsection (b) had been added to the New Hampshire Rule in 1985 to help clarify existing New Hampshire law. The Committee saw no reason to delete this provision.