Law Commons^™

Comment On Prof. Imwinkelried's "Formalism V. Pragmatism In Evidence: Reconsidering The Absolute Ban On The Use Of Extrinsic Evidence To Prove Impeaching Untruthful Acts That Have Not Resulted In Conviction": Just What Evidence Of Witness Misdeeds Does Federal Evidence Rule 608(B) Exclude?---Imwinkelried Vs. Rothstein, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Prof. Edward Imwinkelried, one of the country’s most renowned Evidence scholars, in a recent article in this journal, perceptively identifies three specific examples of evidence of a witness’s prior unconvicted-for misconduct which he correctly believes should be admissible to impeach the witness’s credibility in the discretion of the trial judge:

1. Evidence of demonstrably false previous accusations of rape against the present defendant by the complaining witness in a rape prosecution (assuming the rape shield would not exclude) which the witness will not admit to during cross examination;

2. Documentary evidence proving an unrelated misdeed of a testifying witness clearly …

Unwrapping The Box The Supreme Court Justices Have Gotten Themselves Into: Internal Confrontations Over Confronting The Confrontation Clause, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Williams v. Illinois, handed down in 2012, is the latest in a new and revolutionary line of U.S. Supreme Court cases beginning with the 2004 decision of Crawford v. Washington which radically altered the Court's former approach to the Constitutional Confrontation Clause. That clause generally requires persons who make written or oral statements outside the trial, that may constitute evidence against a criminal defendant, to take the witness stand for cross-examination rather than those statements being presented at the trial only by the writing or by another person who heard the statement.

Previous to Crawford, under Ohio v. …

Ambiguous-Purpose Statements Of Children And Other Victims Of Abuse Under The Confrontation Clause, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The author examines in this paper two kinds of ambiguous-purpose out-of-court statements that are especially problematic under current Confrontation law--problematic in ways that we hope will be solved directly or indirectly by the Supreme Court when it renders its decision in Ohio v. Clark. The statements he examines are:

(1) Statements made by abused children concerning their abuse, for example to police, physicians, teachers, welfare workers, baby sitters, or family members, some of whom may be under a legal duty to report suspected abuse to legal authorities. At least some of these statements will be directly addressed by the …

Comment: The Doctrine Of Chances, Brides Of The Bath And A Reply To Sean Sullivan, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The ‘Doctrine of Chances’ is a doctrine of probability that purports to solve an apparent logical conundrum or contradiction in the law of Evidence.

It is the author's thesis in this article that the doctrine of chances—in any acceptable logical form including that described by Mr. Sullivan—does properly describe when this kind of ‘other wrongs’ evidence is relevant, and how probative it is, but that relevance and probative value where this kind of proof is offered does depend on propensity reasoning even under these theories even in the cases where they say it does not. He is not simply arguing …