Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Evidence Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Criminal Law

Selected Works

Federal Rules of Evidence

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Evidence

Co-Conspirator Declarations: The Federal Rules Of Evidence And Other Recent Developments, From A Criminal Law Perspective, Paul Marcus Sep 2019

Co-Conspirator Declarations: The Federal Rules Of Evidence And Other Recent Developments, From A Criminal Law Perspective, Paul Marcus

Paul Marcus

Perhaps the most important advantage available to a prosecutor in a criminal conspiracy case is the exception to the hearsay rule for co-conspirator declarations. The exception is widely used and is often a significant part of the government presentation. In essence, it provides that otherwise inadmissible hearsay declarations of coconspirators are admissible at trial against the defendant so long as they were made during the course and in furtherance of the conspiracy. The exception typically arises when an alleged co-conspirator declarant tells the witness (often an undercover police officer) all about the conspiracy, perhaps in the hope of attracting a …


Establishing Separate Criminal And Civil Evidence Codes, John J. Capowski Dec 2007

Establishing Separate Criminal And Civil Evidence Codes, John J. Capowski

John J. Capowski

This article suggests that the Federal Rules of Evidence (Rules) should be separated into distinct criminal and civil evidence codes. The arguments for this separation are both practical and theoretical, and this article is the first comprehensive discussion of this proposed separation.

The most important of the arguments for bifurcation is that our current unified evidence code leads to inappropriate admission decisions. These inappropriate admission decisions most often occur when the interpretation of a rule in a criminal case is applied in later civil law cases. This result is in part because our rules, and their interpretations, are transubstantive; they …