Law Commons^™

The Federal Rules Of Emojis: A Proposed Framework For Handling Emoji Evidence In Trial Contexts, Marilyn Hurzeler

Fordham Law Review

Emojis are 3,633 ubiquitous symbols-as-communication used by 92 percent of internet users. These tiny yet influential pieces of evidence hold the power to complete, enhance, mitigate, and flip the meaning of surrounding text. Consequently, court references to emojis have grown exponentially in the last five years. As emojis have become a cornerstone of digital discourse, courts have increasingly encountered the significant impact of emojis on parties’ legal claims. A guide for handling of emoji evidence under the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), therefore, is important to afford proper treatment to this relatively new evidentiary form.

This Note discusses how the …

Conference On Best Practices For Managing Daubert Questions

Fordham Law Review

Most of our faculty have meaningful disciplinary training outside of law including doctrinal training in multiple fields. Our faculty holds secondary appointments in many schools and departments on campus including biology, chemistry, economics, history, management, medicine, political science, psychiatry, radiology, and sociology, and we are home to a unique PhD program in law and economics, as well as a law and neuroscience program funded by the MacArthur Foundation. As a school, we therefore believe we are a logical host for you and your work, and we are thrilled that you are here with us. And speaking personally, I’m particularly pleased …

Conference On Proposed Amendments: Experts, The Rules Of Completeness, And Sequestration Of Witnesses

Fordham Law Review

This conference was held on October 19, 2018, at University of Denver Sturm College of Law under the sponsorship of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules. The transcript has been lightly edited. It represents the panelists’ individual views only and in no way reflects those of their affiliated firms, organizations, law schools, or the judiciary.

Policing The Admissibility Of Body Camera Evidence, Jeffrey Bellin, Shevarma Pemberton

Fordham Law Review

Body cameras are sweeping the nation and becoming, along with the badge and gun, standard issue for police officers. These cameras are intended to ensure accountability for abusive police officers. But, if history is any guide, the videos they produce will more commonly be used to prosecute civilians than to document abuse. Further, knowing that the footage will be available as evidence, police officers have an incentive to narrate body camera videos with descriptive oral statements that support a later prosecution. Captured on an official record that exclusively documents the police officer’s perspective, these statements—for example, “he just threw something …

The Phillip D. Reed Lecture Series: Conference On Possible Amendments To Federal Rules Of Evidence 404(B), 807, And 801(D)(1)(A), Daniel J. Capra

Fordham Law Review

PROFESSOR CAPRA: Thank you, Judge. So let’s start today with some basic details. There will be a transcript of these proceedings, and it will be published in the Fordham Law Review. I’d like to thank the Fordham Law Review for taking this on and agreeing to do it.

Expanding (Or Just Fixing) The Residual Exception To The Hearsay Rule, Daniel J. Capra

Fordham Law Review

The Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules (“the Committee”) has been considering whether to amend Federal Rule of Evidence 807 (known as the residual exception to the hearsay rule) to improve the way the Rule functions—and also to allow the admission of more hearsay if it is reliable. At the conference sponsored by the Committee in October, 2016—transcribed in this Fordham Law Review issue—the Committee submitted a working draft of an amendment that was vetted by the experts at the conference and reviewed favorably by most. This Article analyzes the arguments in favor of and against the reform of …

The Three Commandments Of Amending The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Victor Gold

Fordham Law Review

The Rules have been amended many times in the forty years since they were enacted. Unlike the original drafting process, which necessarily involved consideration of the Rules as a whole, each round of amendments was limited to a specific Rule or set of Rules. This particularized focus is not myopic, but unavoidable; the Rules are numerous and complex, and the time of the Advisory Committee and Congress is limited. But after more than forty years, a broader perspective is possible. The purpose of this Article is to provide a small bit of that perspective, which this Article distills into three …

Big Budget Productions With Limited Release: Video Retention Issues With Body-Worn Cameras, Bradley X. Barbour

Fordham Law Review

Since 2013, there has been growing support for police body-worn cameras in the wake of several high-profile and controversial encounters between citizens and law enforcement. The federal government has justified budgetary measures funding body-worn camera programs as a means to facilitate trust between law enforcement and the public through the objectivity of video footage—a sentiment supported by many lawmakers advocating for implementation of this technology. These policy goals, however, are stymied by a deficiency of police department policies and state statutes regulating the retention of footage and close adherence of states to the precedent of Arizona v. Youngblood, which …

Justice And Other Crimes Evidence: The Smorgasbord Ploy, Kenneth Graham

Fordham Law Review

The smorgasbord ploy probably plays only a minor role in the admission of other crimes evidence. But it offers us a nice window into the uses and abuses of Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence (“the Rules”) and its state clones. Rule 404(b)’s drafters may have supposed that trial judges would look among the illustrative uses in Rule 404(b) and select the one or two that seem most apropos to the case before them. However, the practitioners of smorgasbordism do not make any choices but instead list all (or most) of the illustrative uses to support the admission …

Rethinking The Rationale(S) For Hearsay Exceptions, Stephen A. Saltzburg

Fordham Law Review

The thirty-seven principal provisions that permit out-of-court statements to be admitted for their truth under the Federal Rules of Evidence are found in Article VIII of the Rules. There are eight provisions in Rule 801(d), twenty-three provisions in Rule 803, five provisions in Rule 804 and one provision in Rule 807 that can be relied upon to admit hearsay evidence for its truth value.

The Philip D. Reed Lecture Series: Symposium On Hearsay Reform, Panel Discussion

Fordham Law Review

This Panel Discussion was held on October 9, 2015, at John Marshall Law School. This transcript of the Panel Discussion has been lightly edited and represents the panelists’ individual views only and in no way reflects those of their affiliated firms, organizations, law schools, or the judiciary.

The Hearsay Rule As A Rule Of Admission Revisited, Ronald J. Allen

Fordham Law Review

Now to substance. To intelligently analyze what changes to the hearsay rule should be considered, one needs to examine: first, the overall objectives of the field of evidence; second, the particular objectives of the Federal Rules of Evidence; third, how well the hearsay rule advances, or retards, those objectives; and finally, the sense and sensibility of any proposed changes.

Prior Statements Of Testifying Witnesses: Drafting Choices To Eliminate Or Loosen The Strictures Of The Hearsay Rule, Daniel J. Capra

Fordham Law Review

One of the panels at the Symposium on Hearsay Reform—sponsored by the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules— considered whether the federal hearsay regime should be changed to provide for greater admissibility of prior statements of testifying witnesses. This Article is intended to provide some background to the questions addressed by the panel and to consider how the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Evidence (“the Advisory Committee” or “the Committee”) might best implement an expansion of admissibility of prior witness statements should it decide that such an expansion is warranted.

Forward Progress: A New Pattern Criminal Jury Instruction For Impeachment With Prior Inconsistent Statements Will Ease The Court’S Burden By Emphasizing The Prosecutor’S, Hugh M. Mundy

Fordham Law Review

In this Article, I discuss the history of Rule 801(d)(1)(A), focusing on the origins and importance of the Rule’s restrictive language. In addition, I review the current federal landscape of pattern criminal jury instructions for witness impeachment with a prior inconsistent statement. Finally, I propose a revised jury instruction designed to clarify juror confusion while maintaining the critical safeguards for substantive admissibility of prior inconsistent statements.

On Hearsay, Richard A. Posner

Fordham Law Review

I need to place the remarks that follow in context. And that means I need to acknowledge a number of heresies: I don’t like legal jargon; I don’t like the complexity of legal jargon; I don’t like the legal profession’s indifference to brevity; I don’t like the tendency of lawyers and judges always to be looking to the past for answers to novel questions; and I don’t consider law to be a science or remotely like a science. I want law to be simple and commonsensical and forward-looking. I take my judicial credo from a poem by the great Irish …

Reality Check: A Modest Modification To Rationalize Rule 803 Hearsay Exceptions, Liesa L. Richter

Fordham Law Review

The Federal Rules of Evidence (or “the Rules”) identify hearsay that is admissible, notwithstanding the classic hearsay prohibition, by delineating categories of hearsay statements that may be admitted into evidence. For example, “dying declarations” of now-unavailable declarants may be admitted in homicide prosecutions or civil cases. “Excited utterances” relating to a startling event also may be admitted for their truth. The purported justification for admitting certain categories of hearsay rests upon the inherent reliability of human statements uttered in certain contexts, as well as litigants’ need for crucial evidence to build cases.

Prior Inconsistent Statements And Substantive Evidence—Federal Rule 801(D)(1)(A): The Compromise, Stephen A. Saltzburg

Fordham Law Review

Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(A) is a compromise. The Supreme Court’s version of the Rule, which it submitted to Congress in 1972, would have made all prior inconsistent statements of a witness present in court for cross-examination admissible as substantive evidence. The Court’s proposal was strongly favored by the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence (or “the Advisory Committee”) members who drafted the Rule. They submitted it to the Court knowing that it was consistent with the approach taken by some states and favored by authorities like John Henry Wigmore, Edmund Morgan, and Charles McCormick. But the Court’s …

Prior Inconsistent Statements: The Simple Virtues Of The Original Federal Rule, Daniel D. Blinka

Fordham Law Review

How well do hearsay rules function under the current Federal Rules of Evidence? One issue, dormant yet pulsating beneath the surface for decades, involves the admissibility of prior inconsistent statements by witnesses. The long-standing “orthodox” rule admitted the prior statement only to impeach the witness’s trial testimony; it could not be used as substantive evidence of the facts asserted. In 1972, the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence (“the Advisory Committee” or “the Committee”) proposed an innovative rule permitting all prior inconsistent statements to be used both for impeachment and as substantive evidence—a sea change in practice. Congress, …

The British Experience With Hearsay Reform: A Cautionary Tale, Mark S. Brodin

Fordham Law Review

Among the proposals being considered by the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence (“the Committee”) is the scrapping of the categorical exception regime for hearsay, leaving questions of reliability and admissibility ad hoc to district court judges along the lines of Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) 403 and 807. Over the past decades, the British have moved toward this approach, and it is the purpose of this Article to identify the lessons that can be learned from that experience, especially with regard to criminal prosecutions and the right of confrontation.

Should The Medium Affect The Message? Legal And Ethical Implications Of Prosecutors Reading Inmate-Attorney Email, Brandon P. Ruben

Fordham Law Review

The attorney-client privilege protects confidential legal communications between a party and her attorney from being used against her, thus encouraging full and frank attorney-client communication. It is a venerable evidentiary principle of American jurisprudence. Unsurprisingly, prosecutors may not eavesdrop on inmate-attorney visits or phone calls or read inmate-attorney postal mail. Courts are currently divided, however, as to whether or not they can forbid prosecutors from reading inmate- attorney email.

This Note explores the cases that address whether federal prosecutors may read inmates’ legal email. As courts have unanimously held, because inmates know that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) monitors all …

Symposium On The Challenges Of Electronic Evidence, Panel Discussion

Fordham Law Review

The Phillip D. Reed Lecture Series: Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules

The Case For Ehearsay, Jeffrey Bellin

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Memorandum: Hearsay Exception For Electronic Communications Of Recent Perception, Daniel J. Capra

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Architects Of Justice: The Prosecutor’S Role And Resolving Whether Inadmissible Evidence Is Material Under The Brady Rule, Blaise Niosi

Fordham Law Review

In Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the prosecution has a constitutional duty to disclose evidence favorable to the defendant’s guilt or punishment upon request. The Court’s subsequent expansion of its holding in Brady has formed the “Brady rule,” which requires the prosecution to learn of and to disclose to the defendant all material exculpatory and impeachment information. The Court defined “material” as information that would cause a reasonable probability of a different trial outcome had it been disclosed.

Currently, a circuit court split exists regarding whether evidence is material for purposes of the Brady …

The Court As Gatekeeper: Preventing Unreliable Pretrial Ediscovery From Jeopardizing A Reliable Fact-Finding Process, Daniel K. Gelb

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Adverse Inference Instruction After Revised Rule 37(E): An Evidence-Based Proposal, Shira A. Sheindlin, Natalie M. Orr

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panel Discussion: Reinvigorating Rule 502, Panel Discussion

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Model Draft Of A Rule 502(D) Order, Symposium Participants

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evidence Rule 502: The Solution To The Privilege-Protection Puzzle In The Digital Era, John M. Barkett

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

Enter The Order, Protect The Privilege: Considerations For Courts Entering Protective Orders Under Federal Rule Of Evidence 502(D), Edwin M. Buffmire

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.