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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Hearsay Exception For Public Records In Federal Criminal Trials, Vincent C. Alexander Jan 1983

The Hearsay Exception For Public Records In Federal Criminal Trials, Vincent C. Alexander

Faculty Publications

The hearsay exception for "public records" was recognized at common law and has been further developed in most jurisdictions by statute. The reliability of public records is said to derive from the presumption of regularity and accuracy that attends the recording of events by public officials. As with the hearsay exception for recordsmade in the regular course of a private business, the reliability of many public records is enhanced by the routine and repetitive circumstancesunder which such records are made. An additional justificationfor the admission of public records is public convenience: If government employees are continually required to testify in …


When Blood Is Their Argument: Probabilities In Criminal Cases, Genetic Markers, And, Once Again, Bayes' Theorem, Randolph N. Jonakait Jan 1983

When Blood Is Their Argument: Probabilities In Criminal Cases, Genetic Markers, And, Once Again, Bayes' Theorem, Randolph N. Jonakait

Articles & Chapters

Revolutionary advances in blood typing soon will cause a dramatic increase in the presentation of statistical evidence in criminal trials. Courts have admitted statistics into criminal trials before, and the proper use of this type of evidence has been debated previously. Until now, however, such mathematical evidence has been rare. Recently, however, a number of courts have admitted probability evidence derived from new and complex blood tests. Such evidence may soon be as commonplace as fingerprint testimony. The courts that have admitted this evidence, however, have done so without learning from past discussions about the proper role of statistical evidence. …


Does (Did) (Should) The Exclusionary Rule Rest On A 'Principled Basis' Rather Than An 'Empirical Proposition'?, Yale Kamisar Jan 1983

Does (Did) (Should) The Exclusionary Rule Rest On A 'Principled Basis' Rather Than An 'Empirical Proposition'?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

[U]ntil the [exclusionary rule] rests on a principled basis rather than an empirical proposition, [the rule] will remain in a state of unstable equilibrium. Mapp v. Ohio, which overruled the then twelve-year-old Wolf case and imposed the fourth amendment exclusionary rule (the Weeks doctrine) on the states as a matter of fourteenth amendment due process, seemed to mark the end of an era. Concurring in Mapp, Justice Douglas recalled that Wolf had evoked "a storm of constitutional controversy which only today finds its end."' But in the two decades since Justice Douglas made this observation, the storm of controversy has …