Law Commons^™

The Best Evidence Principle, Dale A. Nance

Faculty Publications

This Article challenges the premises underlying the reasoning in decisions like Gonzales-Benitez. The point is not that the appellants in that case should have prevailed, but simply that the court's treatment of their argument was inadequate. The court should have considered whether the trial court had and abused a discretion to deny admission of the testimony pursuant to a general best evidence principle. At the very least, the court should have justified its implicit assumption that the phrase ‘best evidence’ could only refer, in the context of this case, to the original document rule.