Law Commons^™

Crawford’S Aftershock: Aligning The Regulation Of Non-Testimonial Hearsay With The History And Purposes Of The Confrontation Clause, Fred O. Smith

Fred O. Smith Jr.

This Article explores what the purposes, history and text of the Confrontation Clause have to say about the admission of non-testimonial hearsay statements. Part I examines historical sources such as the common law near the Founding, as well as the text of the clause, and concludes that non-testimonial hearsay was one of the ills that the Confrontation Clause was designed to protect. Part I additionally proposes a two-tiered approach to interpreting the Confrontation Clause, in which testimonial statements receive the most vigorous form of constitutional scrutiny, but non-testimonial statements receive meaningful scrutiny as well. The United States Constitution is no …

Towards A Scientific Standard For The Admissibility And Evaluation Of Psychiatric Evidence In War Crimes Prosecutions, Matthew J. Madalo

Matthew J Madalo

"Towards a Standard for the Admissibility and Evaluation of Psychiatric Evidence in War Crimes Prosecutions" explores the nature and use of psychiatric/psychological defenses and evidence in war crimes prosecutions. Part I of the article focuses on the differing goals and overlapping concerns between psychiatry and the law. In the international criminal legal context, the discussion will center on the types of psychiatric evidence and defenses that have been used or are likely to be used in war crimes prosecutions. Part II analyzes the applicable ICTY, ICR and ICC Statutes, Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and relevant United States common law …

Making The Sale On Contingent Valuation, Sameer H. Doshi

Sameer H Doshi

Scholarship and jurisprudence have not seriously considered the question of whether the contingent valuation (CV) technique of monetizing preferences for non-tradeable public goods is consistent with the Daubert standards for scientific evidence. The greatest difficulty is in establishing that CV is testable and has measurable error rates; this problem is consonant with criticisms that economists have leveled at the CV method more generally. Additionally, the “state of the art” of contingent valuation practice has recommended the use of the willingness-to-pay question format for CV, rather than willingness-to-accept. This is misplaced in many cases, particularly in calculating damages in environmental tort …

Confronting The “Ongoing Emergency”: A Pragmatic Approach To Hearsay Evidence In The Context Of The Sixth Amendment, Ellen Liang Yee

ellen yee

The Supreme Court’s path breaking decision in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S 36 (2004), held that admission of an extrajudicial testimonial statement by an unavailable declarant-witness violates the Confrontation Clause unless the defendant has an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant. Unfortunately, the determination of admissibility for the trial court judge has not been simplified after Crawford. The role of the trial court judge has now shifted from determining the reliability of the hearsay evidence (as was required before Crawford) to a determination of the testimonial nature of the declarant’s statement. However, with some small exceptions, the Court in Crawford explicitly …

Should Statements Made By Patients During Psychotherapy Fall Within The Medical Treatment Hearsay Exception? An Interdisciplinary Critique, Philip K. Hamilton

Philip K. Hamilton

This article challenges the prevailing view of courts that statements made to a mental health clinician are the functional equivalent of statements made for the purpose of any other kind of treatment and should therefore be admitted under the hearsay exception for statements made for the purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment. The article takes the position that, because of the nature of psychotherapy, patient statements to therapists are not sufficiently reliable to be included in the hearsay exception.

This use of the “medical treatment exception,” which began with statements of child victims in abuse cases, has been extended to …

Procedural Path Dependence: Discrimination And The Civil-Criminal Divide, Julie C. Suk

Julie C Suk

Procedural path dependence occurs when the particular features of the procedural system which has been charged with enforcing a given legal norm determine the substantive path of that legal norm. This article shows how the limits of employment discrimination law in two different national contexts can be explained by procedural dynamics. In France, as in several European countries, employment discrimination law is enforced predominantly in criminal proceedings. French criminal procedure enables the discovery of information necessary to proving the facts of discrimination, whereas the limited nature of French civil procedure makes it impossible for such information to be revealed. As …

Toward A Unified Theory Of Testimonial Evidence Under The Fifth And Sixth Amendments, Michael J.Z. Mannheimer

Michael J.Z. Mannheimer

There is an obvious parallel between the language of the Self-Incrimination Clause and that of the Confrontation Clause: the former forbids the government from forcing a criminal suspect to become a “witness against himself,” while the latter requires the government to allow a criminal defendant to confront the “witnesses against him.” The irresistible inference is that the word “witness” means the same thing in both Clauses. And, indeed, the Supreme Court has hinged the question of whether someone is a "witness" in both contexts on whether he or she has given "testimonial" evidence. Yet, at least at first blush, the …

If The Glove Don’T Fit, Try Newer Gloves: The Unplanned Obsolescence Of The Substantial Similarity Standard For Experimental Evidence, Jonathan M. Hoffman

Jonathan M Hoffman

In the context of a recent Fifth Circuit decision, this article reviews the law concerning the admissibility of “experimental” and demonstrative evidence. The standards used to determine the admissibility of both categories of evidence predate the Federal Rules of Evidence. These standards for admission of such evidence are obsolete and at odds with the Federal Rules. The issue is particularly important in the wake of the Kumho Tire decision and the 2000 amendments to Federal Rule of Evidence 702, as engineers and other technical experts are increasingly called upon to test their hypotheses, even as the courts’ continued use of …

Evidentiary Value Of Expert Opinion Under Indian Evidence Act, Krishna Kumari Areti

Krishna Kumari Areti prof

Law of evidence allows a person –who is a witness to state the facts related to either to a fact in issue or to relevant fact, but not his inference. It applies to both criminal law and civil law. The opinion of any person other than the judge by whom the fact has to be decided as to the existence of the facts in issue or relevant facts are as a rule, irrelevant to the decision of the cases to which they relate for the most obvious reasons- for this would invest the person whose opinion was proved with the …

Search And Seizure On Steroids: United States V. Comprehensive Drug Testing And Its Consequences For Private Information Stored On Commercial Electronic Databases, Aaron S. Lowenstein

Aaron S Lowenstein

This article critiques the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing. This case received some attention because it stems from the investigation into the use of steroids in Major League Baseball. It should have received much more attention, however, because of its troubling expansion of the government’s authority to access our private digital information without a warrant.

Executing a search warrant for information stored on a computer database poses special problems. Because targets of government investigations can easily conceal incriminating digital evidence, investigators often must search an entire computer hard drive in order to effectively execute …

If You Could Read My Mind: Implications Of Neurological Evidence For Twenty-First Century Criminal Jurisprudence, John G. New

John G. New

The advent of new technologies has permitted cognitive neuroscientists to explore the neural mechanisms underlying deceptive behaviors. Lawyers and law enforcement entities have shown great interest in exploring the legal consequences of employing such technologies; indeed such interest extends back to the days of phrenology and the advent of polygraphy. This article recounts current advances in the development of “truth telling” technologies, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and Brain Fingerprinting and recent attempts to introduce the latter into court as scientific evidence. The second part of the article explores the challenges to constitutional jurisprudence, especially to the Fifth and …

Do Rules Of Evidence Apply (Only) In The Courtroom? Deceptive Interrogations In The United States And Germany, Jacqueline E. Ross

Jacqueline E Ross

Scholars who compare common law and civil law countries have long argued that civil law legal systems like Germany do not employ formal rules of evidence comparable to those which govern American courtrooms. The complex and restrictive nature of American evidentiary rules is said to be an artifact of the adversarial process and lay juries, which the legal system does not trust to evaluate evidence dispassionately. Civil law systems that commit fact-finding to mixed panels of lay and professional judges are said to have less need for formal rules of evidence that withhold information from decision-makers.

My essay challenges this …

Who Knew? Admissibility Of Subsequent Remedial Measures When Defendants Are Without Knowledge Of The Injuries, Mark Boyko, Ryan Vacca

Mark Boyko

Federal Rule of Evidence 407 prohibits the introduction of subsequent remedial measures for the purposes of demonstrating negligence, culpable conduct, or product defect. But the rule breaks down when a defendant undertakes the new safety measure after the plaintiff's injury, but before the defendant had knowledge of the loss. This situation is not uncommon. Toxic exposure cases represent a prime example where defendants are likely to have improvements before learning of a plaintiff's injury. Should evidence of these improvements be admissible? The literal text of Rule 407 suggests not. Yet admitting this evidence may not have the same chilling effect …

Criminal Performances: Film, Autobiography, And Confession, Jessica M. Silbey

Jessica Silbey

This article questions the criminal justice emphasis on filmed confession as the superlative evidentiary proffer that promotes accuracy and minimizes unconstitutional coercion by comparing filmed confessions to autobiographical film. It suggests that analyzing filmed confessions as a kind of autobiographical film exposes helpful tensions between the law’s reliance on confession as revealing the inner self and the literary and filmic conception of confession as constituting one self among many. Through a close examination of several filmed confessions along side an examination of the history of autobiographical writing and film, this article shows how filmed confessions do not reveal the truthfulness …

Community Notification And The Perils Of Mandatory Juvenile Sex Offender Registration: The Dangers Faced By Children And Their Families, Joanna S. Markman

Joanna S. Markman

The impetus for the creation of a separate juvenile justice system, as will be explained below, was the acknowledgment that children are not adults, and as such, do not have the capacity for rationale thoughts as do adults. Moreover, the juvenile justice system was derived to create a structure whereby rehabilitation would be the ultimate objective in devising juvenile punishment or, as it is referred to in the language of juvenile law, disposition.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to garner sympathy for the plight of the sexual offender. This Article is not designed to do so. Moreover, while it …

Who Knew? The Admissibility Of Subsequent Remedial Measures When Defendants Are Without Knowledge Of The Injuries, Ryan G. Vacca

Ryan G. Vacca

Federal Rule of Evidence 407 and equivalent state court rules prohibit the introduction of subsequent remedial measures for the purpose of demonstrating negligence, culpable conduct, or product defect. The rule breaks down, however, in application and purpose, when a defendant undertakes a new safety measure after the plaintiff's injury but before the defendant had knowledge of the loss. Such a situation is not uncommon. Would-be defendants frequently improve their products and product safety, whether in response to injuries incurred by other users, business pressures, or simply advances in the state of the art and scientific knowledge. Toxic exposure cases, where …

The “Csi Effect”: Better Jurors Through Television And Science?, Michael Mann

Michael D. Mann

This Comment explores how television shows such as CSI and Law & Order have created heightened juror expectations in courtrooms across America. Surprise acquitals often have prosectors scratching their heads as jurors hold them to this new "Hollywood" standard. The Comment also analyzes the CSI phenomena by reflecting on past legal television shows that have influenced the public's perception of the legal profession and how the "CSI effect" has placed an even greater burden on parties to proffer some kind of forensic evidence at trial.

The Comment was published in volume 24 of the Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal (2006).

Los Principios Generales Del Derecho Probatorio Y El Proceso Civil, Dr Leonardo J. Raznovich

Dr Leonardo J Raznovich

This article, written and published for a Spanish speaking audience, provides with a critical comparative overview of the principles of civil procedure and of the law of evidence.

The Fall Of The Confession Era, Kenworthey Bilz

Kenworthey Bilz

This book review-essay of Solan & Tiersma’s SPEAKING OF CRIME argues that with the advent of new technologies such as improvements in DNA identification, fMRI ‘lie detector’ tests, and the like, courts will rely less and less on confessions altogether, rendering obsolete much of the doctrine that currently surrounds linguistic interpretation (and other markers) of consent and coercion.

The Metamorphoses Of Reasonable Doubt: How Changes In The Burden Of Proof Have Weakened The Presumption Of Innocence, Steve Sheppard

Steve Sheppard

The standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is commonly thought to be an important benefit to the accused. The history of the standard is much more complex and demonstrates lesser commitments to the truth and to the defendant.

This article develops the history of the reasonable doubt instruction in the United States and its English antecedents. Examining the development of the instruction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and its evolution through the nineteenth and twentieth, this history reveals the dual nature of the instruction. It both encapsulated a theory of knowledge and articulated a level of confidence in …

Two Conceptions Of Relevance, Jonathan Yovel

Jonathan Yovel

Courts use complex modes of relevance judgments in regulating the introduction of information and construction of factual narratives; likewise, common law works both through and around relevance presuppositions in determining doctrine. This study examines different functions of relevance - conceived as different conceptions, at times competing, at times interdependent. The distinctions between these conceptions are arranged on three levels: 1) a normative/"causal" level, arguing for the status of relevance as a requirement for a "meaning-based" conception of entailment and drawing on discussions from relevance logic (RL) and modal logic; 2) a pragmatic/metapragmatic level that explores the ways in which law's …

Testing The Admissibility Of Trademark Surveys After Daubert, Artemio Rivera

Artemio Rivera

To be admissible, a survey must apply the principles of survey research to the target population in a reliable manner, and base its results upon sufficient interviews and responses. These requirements make clear that the existence of flaws in a survey is not simply a matter of weight to be resolved by the fact finder, but an issue of admissibility that must be determined by the courts as part of their gate keeping duties.

Evidentiary Relevance, Morally Reasonable Verdicts, And Jury Nullification, Todd E. Pettys

Todd E. Pettys

In Old Chief v. United States, the Supreme Court stated that evidence offered by the Government in a criminal case has “fair and legitimate weight” if it tends to show that a guilty verdict would be morally reasonable. This Article focuses on that proposition. First, it discusses the ways in which Old Chief’s analysis rests upon a broadened understanding of evidentiary relevance. Second, it argues that significant theoretical difficulties impede any effort to determine whether evidence tends to show that a guilty verdict would be morally reasonable. Third, it argues that adopting Old Chief’s conception of relevance would necessitate significant …

Why Legal Scholars Get Daubert Wrong: A Contextualist Explanation Of Law's Epistemology, Alani Golanski

Alani Golanski

Daubert requires the court to make judgments about scientific evidence. But judges, like jurors, are lay persons in relation to such evidence. So Daubert has been criticized as requiring too much of the court, and such alternatives as blue ribbon panels have been proposed. This article shows that, notwithstanding any problems that Daubert itself might have, the Daubert scholarship is significantly hampered by the way legal scholars categorize knowledge. A "contextualist" (as opposed to "invariantist") theory of knowledge is both philosophically best, and makes sense of law's relation to science.

Comparing Similarly Situated People In Disparate Treatment Cases, David G. Karro

David G. Karro

I wrote this in 1993 for paralegals and new attorneys who were having trouble understanding the concept of comparing similarly situated people in order to prove motive. Many lawyers and paralegals approach the topic mechanically, without any real conception of what makes a comparison of the treatment of people probative, or not probative, of intentional discrimination. Although fifteen years old as of the time of this writing (2008), I believe the approach remains valid and still has significant pedagogical value for newcomer to the area. The citations are also useful for lawyers under who need a quick way of getting …

The Trial Judge As Gatekeeper For Scientific Evidence: Will Ohio Rule Of Evidence 102 Frustrate The Ohio Courts' Role Under Daubert V. Merrell Dow?, Chris Mcneil

Christopher B. McNeil, J.D., Ph.D.

No abstract provided.