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Restoring The Presumption Of Innocence: Protecting A Defendant’S Right To A Fair Trial By Closing The Door On 404(B) Evidence, Aaron Diaz
St. Mary's Law Journal
Congress enacted the Federal Rules of Evidence to govern evidentiary procedures and “eliminate unjustifiable expense and delay.” In criminal cases, for example, Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) seeks to prevent prosecutors from improperly introducing a defendant’s past misdeeds. Nevertheless, prosecutors often attempt to introduce a defendant’s past misconduct to suggest that a defendant has a propensity to commit crimes, which is improper character evidence. Unsurprisingly, 404(b) is one of the most litigated evidence rules and has generated more published opinions than any other subsections of the Rules. And despite efforts to amend Rule 404(b), the rule has remained virtually untouched. …
The Future Of The Confrontation Clause: Semiautonomous And Autonomous Machine Witnesses, Brian Sites
The Future Of The Confrontation Clause: Semiautonomous And Autonomous Machine Witnesses, Brian Sites
Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
How should the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment be interpreted as to machine witnesses? Courts across the country have resisted efforts to cross-examine the human agents who assist machines that generate data used in criminal trials. Such challenges under the Confrontation Clause have been rejected directly and in great number, and the rules of evidence are largely being read to not require the testimony of those who have the best information about the machine's use for the case at hand. This problem arises in an era of machine exceptionalism and widespread use. From increasingly sophisticated forensic lab tools to …