Evidence Commons^™

Demystifying Burdens Of Proof And The Effect Of Rebuttable Evidentiary Presumptions In Civil And Criminal Trials, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Evidentiary presumptions in law act as shortcuts to rigorous proof. By means of an evidentiary presumption, a difficult-to-prove critical fact may be established by proving some other more easily provable subsidiary fact from which the critical fact may be presumed. This accounts for the popularity of these presumptions with trial lawyers.

But the puzzling question has always been, “What effect on the normal processes of trial, does a legal presumption have, especially when there is other evidence pro and con on the presumed fact?” This article aims to shed light on these problems, and to examine the arsenal of tools …