Law Commons^™

Evidence law in North Carolina senselessly punishes victims of domestic and sexual violence by broadly sanctioning witness impeachment with prior convictions – no matter the implicit prejudice to the witness or how little the conviction bears on credibility. The North Carolina approach is an outlier. Under Rule 609 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, the use of conviction evidence for impeaching witness credibility is confined to felonies and crimes involving dishonest acts or false statements. Their use must also satisfy judicial balancing tests aimed at protecting against unfair prejudice to the witness. The majority of states take a similar or …

Social media users collectively register billions of "likes" each and every day to the endless flow of content posted on social networking websites. What an individual user actually intends by the quick click of the "like" button may vary widely. Perhaps she is conveying acknowledgement but not agreement. Maybe he is expressing support but not acceptance. Within the social media context, short-form clicks register the same response. Yet they may be intended to convey sorrow, joy, support, agreement, acknowledgement, humor, or a multitude of other emotions. What a user actually intends by social media "likes" depends entirely on the person …