Digital Commons Network^™

Impeachment By Conviction Evidence: Judicial Discretion And The Politics Of Rule 609, Victor Gold

Cardozo Law Review

No provision of the Federal Rules of Evidence has sparked more controversy than Rule 609, which deals with the admissibility of convictions to impeach a witness. When first proposed, the provision was the subject of fierce debate, sparking repeated revision during its drafting and while it was under consideration by Congress. Ultimately, no one side in this legislative battle prevailed entirely; the Rule strikes a compromise between sharply conflicting policies. The text of Rule 609, incorporating no less than three balancing tests, two references to fairness, one to justice, and several other undefined terms, leaves the task of resolving the …

Dna Fingerprinting: The Virginia Approach, James P. O'Brien Jr.

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hearsay, The New York And Federal Rules Of Evidence: What's The Difference?, Richard T. Farrell

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Admission Of Hearsay Evidence Where Defedant Misconduct Causes The Unavailability Of A Prosecution Witness, Paul T. Markland

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Double Jeopardy: A Course Into The Dark, Anne Bowen Poulin

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Admissibility Of Prior Acquittal Evidence - Has North Carolina Adopted The "Minority View?" - The Effect Of State V. Scott, Matthew S. Sullivan

Campbell Law Review

This Note will examine the court's decision in State v. Scott. First, the Note will address the facts of the case. Second, it will set out the background on how courts decide whether evidence of this nature should be admitted, mainly focusing on Rules 403 and 404(b) of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence. Next, the Note will analyze how the court arrived at this "bright-line" rule as well as the effect it will have in future cases. Finally, the Note will conclude that even though North Carolina adopted the "minority rule", this approach is proper under the concept …

Supreme Court Rules On Statements Against Interest, The , Michael M. Martin

Faculty Scholarship

Reliability has been defined as "worthy of dependence" or "of proven consistency in producing satisfactory results." It is a common concept as well as a quality for which individuals search in their everyday transactions, such as purchasing a car or selecting an express delivery service. It similarly shapes the rules of evidence pertaining to hearsay. Beth common law and modem evidentiary codes ban the admission of extrajudicial statements offered to prove the truth of a matter asserted because they are not made under oath, in the presence of the trier of fact, and subject to cross-examination. Without these safeguards, the …

Character Impeachment Evidence: The Asymmetrical Interaction Between Personality And Situation, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In Part I of this Comment, I present a short version of my argument against the admissibility of character impeachment evidence of criminal defendants, showing how the key elements ofthis argument are present in Professor Uviller's own Article. In Part II, I suggest that, notwithstanding Professor Uviller's comments to the contrary, an asymmetrical result-never admitting character evidence to impeach criminal defendants but admitting such evidence in some circumstances to impeach other witnesses- is perfectly reasonable. Finally, in Part III, I contend that Professor Uviller's interesting judicial surveys support the solution I have proposed for the problem of character impeachment evidence.

Coconspirator Statements And Former Testimony In New York And Federal Courts With Some Comments On Codification, Randolph N. Jonakait

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court Rules On Statements Against Interest, Michael M. Martin

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Hague Evidence Convention: The Need For Guidance On Procedures And Resolution Of Conflicts In Transnational Discovery, John C. Plaster

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

As international commercial disputes become more common, United States courts increasingly face difficult issues involved in transnational discovery. Two frequently encountered issues are choosing whether to use the discovery procedures of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or the Hague Evidence Convention and whether to enforce a discovery order when the order conflicts with a law of the state in which discovery is to occur. Although the Supreme Court has addressed both of these issues, it has left lower courts considerable discretion to deal with these issues case by case. Lower courts, therefore, have not been uniform in their approaches …

Inadequate Interpreting Services In Courts And The Rules Of Admissibility Of Testimony On Extrajudicial Interpretations, Beth G. Lindie

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Discovery In Oklahoma: A Call For Legislative Action, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

This article first explores the Allen decision and the extent to which Allen changed the law of criminal discovery in Oklahoma. Next, the article examines some of the theoretical and practical problems with the Allen procedures as well as the efforts of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to address some of the troublesome questions generated by Allen. Finally, the article discusses the need to replace the Allen provisions with a legislative framework that facilitates pretrial access to information and minimizes “trial ambush,” but without compromising the fair and efficient operation of the adversary system.

Just The Facts, Ma'am: Lying And The Omission Of Exculpatory Evidence In Police Reports,, Stanley Z. Fisher

Faculty Scholarship

George Jones's ordeal was the product of, and in turn sheds light upon, police practices of investigating crimes and writing reports. Written police reports of criminal incidents and arrests give details such as the time, place, and nature of criminal conduct; the names and addresses of victims and witnesses; physical characteristics of the perpetrator(s) or arrestee(s); weapons used; property taken, recovered, or seized from the arrestee; and injuries to persons and property. Through their reports, the police "have fundamental control over the construction of [the] 'facts' for a case, and all other actors (the prosecutor, the judge, the defense lawyer) …

The Residual Hearsay Exception Reconsidered, James E. Beaver

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Junk Science”: The Criminal Cases, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Commonwealth V. Lively: Pennsylvania Imposes Limitations On The Substantive Admissibility Of Prior Inconsistent Statements Of Non-Party Witnesses To Ensure Statement Reliability, Jeanine M. Kasulis

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Admissibility Of Expert Testimony On Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome In Kentucky, Michele Meyer Mccarthy

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Emerging International Consensus As To Criminal Procedure Rules, Craig M. Bradley

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will demonstrate that these general claims, as well as certain observations about specific countries, were, with one significant exception, substantially wrong when they were written. More importantly, due to significant developments in several countries in the years since those reports came out, they are even more wrong now. That is, not only have the U.S. concepts of pre-interrogation warnings to suspects, a search warrant requirement, and the use of an exclusionary remedy to deter police misconduct been widely adopted, but in many cases other countries have gone beyond the U.S. requirements.

Some Steps Between Attitudes And Verdicts, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Book Chapters

Most research that has attempted to predict verdict preferences on the basis of stable juror characteristics, such as attitudes and personality traits, has found that individual differences among jurors are not very useful predictors, accounting for only a small proportion of the variance in verdict choices. Some commentators have therefore concluded that verdicts are overwhelmingly accounted for by "the weight of the evidence," and that differences among jurors have negligible effects. But there is a paradox here: In most cases the weight of the evidence is insufficient to produce firstballot unanimity in the jury (Hans & Vidmar, 1986; Hastie, Penrod, …

When Defendant Becomes The Victim: A Child's Recantation As Newly Discovered Evidence, Christopher J. Sinnott

Cleveland State Law Review

This note will explore the standards for granting new trials within the child recantation setting. It will argue that insistence on respecting the evidentiary statements of children is contrary to common sense and current research. As a result, the standards for new trial ought to be rethought. Part II will analyze the two prevalent standards used by courts to weigh the merit of a new trial motion and will show why both standards present a nearly insurmountable hurdle for a movant to satisfy. Part III will explore the special issues that confront a court each time a young "victim" testifies. …

Dna Evidence: Probability, Population Genetics, And The Courts, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

To help meet the challenge of presenting properly performed DNA tests within the post-Daubert legal framework, this article outlines the statistical procedures that have been employed or proposed to provide judges and juries with quantitative measures of probative value, describes more fully how the courts have dealt with these procedures, and evaluates the opinions and the statistical analyses from the standpoint of the law of evidence.

Specifically, the article outlines the procedure used to declare whether two samples of DNA "match," and how shrinking the size of the "match window," as some defendants have urged, will decrease the risk of …

Myself Alone: Individualizing Justice Through Psychological Character Evidence, Andrew E. Taslitz

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Grammarians At The Gate: The Rehnquist Court's Evolving Plain Meaning Approach To Bankruptcy Jurisprudence, Walter Effross

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Payne V. Tennessee: The Supreme Court Places Its Stamp Of Approval On The Use Of "Victim Impact Evidence" During Capital Sentencing Proceedings, Stephen M. Sargent

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stories Versus Theories At The Cardozo Evidence Conference: It’S Just Another Metaphor To Me, L. H. Larue

Cardozo Law Review

Cardozo Law School was host to an evidence conference on March 24-26, 1991. The papers have been published, so the conference has been duly memorialized. However, the conference had a "subtext" that differed from the "text," that is, the theme of the conference, judging from the hallway gossip, differed from the officially proclaimed theme; if one reads the published text carefully, one can see the subtext within the text, the unofficial theme alongside the official theme. I asked the editors of this Review to let me record my evaluation of the unofficial theme, so that it may have equal status …

Beyond Maryland V. Craig: Can And Should Adult Rape Victims Be Permitted To Testify By Closed-Circuit Television?, Lisa Hamilton Thielmeyer

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Experts As Hearsay Conduits: Confrontation Abuses In Opinion Testimony, Ronald L. Carlson

Scholarly Works

The dispute over whether litigants may use experts to run unexamined hearsay into the trial record is a microcosm of a larger debate. The larger question is whether judicial review of expert testimony should be passive, or whether the expert witness process should be marked by active judicial policing. Does the plethora of expert opinions presently being offered in modern trials merit special scrutiny by the courts?

Some scholars urge that courts must accommodate experts. Proponents of this view favor few challenges to the unrestricted rendition of opinions by an expert, whether the expert is real or self-proclaimed. Under this …

On Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Ninth Circuit, Brief Of Product Liability Advisory Council, Inc., National Association Of Manufacturers, Business Roundtable, And Chemical Manufacturers Association As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent, William Daubert And Joyce Daubert, Individually And As Guardians Ad Litem For Jason Daubert, And Anita De Young, Individually And As Gaurdian Ad Litem For Eric Schuller V. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Paul F. Rothstein, Victor E. Schwartz, Robert P. Charrow, Scott L. Winkelman, Edward C. Wu, Richard Duesenberg, David F. Zoll, Donald D. Evans, Jan S. Amundson, Edward P. Good

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

The Federal Rules of Evidence exclude expert scientific testimony when it has been developed without regard for accepted scientific methods.

This case focuses on expert scientific evidence. Such evidence plays a vital and often dispositive role in modern litigation. For scientific evidence to be helpful to the factfinder it must meet some minimal threshold of reliability. To hold otherwise would be to allow a system of adjudication based more on chance than on reason.

Civil Forfeiture Of Property For Drug Offenders Under Illinois And Federal Statute: Zero Tolerance, Zero Exceptions, 25 J. Marshall L. Rev. 389 (1992), T. J. Hiles

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.