Law Commons^™

The Incongruence Principle Of Evidence, Hillel Bavli

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Evidence law assumes that the meaning and value of information at trial is equal to the meaning and value of the same information in the real world. This premise underlies evidence policy, judicial applications of evidence law, and instructions to jurors for evaluating evidence. However, it is incorrect, and the law’s failure to recognize this hinders its aims of accuracy and equality.

In this article, I draw on fields outside of law - including Bayesian inference and cognitive psychology - to develop a model of evidence that describes how jurors combine new evidence with prior beliefs (or “priors”) to make …

State V. Hudgen¸ 272 A.3d 1069 (R.I. 2022)., Judd W. Krasher

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Race, Gatekeeping, Magical Words, And The Rules Of Evidence, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

Although it might not be apparent from the Federal Rules of Evidence themselves, or the common law that preceded them, there is a long history in this country of tying evidence—what is deemed relevant, what is deemed trustworthy—to race. And increasingly, evidence scholars are excavating that history. Indeed, not just excavating, but showing how that history has racial effects that continue into the present.

One area that has escaped racialized scrutiny—at least of the type I am interested in—is that of expert testimony. In this brief Essay written for the Vanderbilt Law Review Symposium, Reimagining the Rules of Evidence at …

Binding Hercules: A Proposal For Bench Trials, Maggie Wittlin

Faculty Scholarship

Should the Federal Rules of Evidence apply at bench trials? By their own terms, they apply, but courts have been reluctant to enforce them on themselves with the same rigor that they enforce them on juries. Scholarship on the issue has been mixed. Although McCormick deemed the rules of evidence "absurdly inappropriate" outside of the jury context, more recently, scholars have suggested that many reasons for imposing exclusionary rules on jurors also apply to judges. Yet practical problems persist. For one, once judge evaluate the admissibility of evidence, they can’t “unring the bell” and ignore evidence they've decided to exclude. …

Shifting The Male Gaze Of Evidence, Teneille R. Brown

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In this article I target the altar at which many of us worship—the pursuit of rationality. For evidence purposes, rationality is defined as decisions that are reasonable, objective, inductive, and free from the bias of emotion. This view of rationality is deeply embedded in evidence scholarship and practice. It is also reflected in evidence rules like FRE 403, which treat emotional testimony as unfairly prejudicial simply because it is emotional. The anti-emotion view of rationality reflects the thinking of Western philosophical giants. Plato, Hobbes, Descartes, and Bacon all thought that men should strive for rationality by suppressing their emotions, because …

A History Of Fruit Of The Poisonous Tree (1916-1942), Daniel B. Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

This is a history of a little-known stage within an otherwise well-known area of criminal procedure. The subject, “fruit of the poisonous tree,” explains the exclusion from trial of evidence (the fruit) derived from unconstitutional police practices (the tree). The Supreme Court first deployed the metaphor in 1939; exclusion of fruits by any other name, however, dates to before the Court began reviewing state convictions. While academic interest in the 1963-to-present phase of fruits is keen, the first quarter of what is now a century of history is taken as given, described in only the most conclusory terms. The 1916–1942 …

Theorizing Corroboration, Maggie Wittlin

Faculty Scholarship

A child makes an out-of-court statement accusing an adult of abuse. That statement is important proof, but it also presents serious reliability concerns. When deciding whether it is sufficiently reliable to be admitted, should a court consider whether the child’s statement is corroborated—whether, for example, there is medical evidence of abuse? More broadly, should courts consider corroboration when deciding whether evidence is reliable enough to be admitted at trial? Judges, rule-makers, and scholars have taken significantly divergent approaches to this question and come to different conclusions.

This Article argues that there is a key problem with using corroboration to evaluate …

The Future Scope Of The Character Evidence Prohibition: The Contextual Statutory Construction Argument That Could Finally Force The Policy Discussion, Paul F. Rothstein, Edward J. Imwinkelried

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The general prohibition of character evidence is one of the most important doctrines in American Evidence law. Since the Supreme Court has held that the Eighth Amendment forbids status offenses in adult prosecutions, the doctrine has constitutional overtones. Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) applies the prohibition to evidence of an accused’s other crimes and wrongs. Since such evidence can be inflammatory and the Rule’s limits sometimes confusing, Rule 404(b) generates more published opinions than any other provision of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Although the prohibition extends beyond other crimes, most of the controversy swirls around the Rule’s application to …

Confrontation, The Legacy Of Crawford, And Important Unanswered Questions, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This is a short piece for the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform as part of its 2024 Symposium on “Crawford at 20: Reforming the Confrontation Clause.” The piece's purpose is to highlight certain important questions left unanswered by Crawford v. Washington and subsequent confrontation cases.

Urgensi Pembentukan Laporan Khusus Sebagai Solusi Alat Bukti Surat Dalam Penanganan Kasus Tppu Di Indonesia: Pintu Optimalisasi Hubungan Ppatk-Penyidik, Amanda Geraldine, Altuti Altuti, Muhamad Rayhan Firmansyah

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre or Financial intelligence unit (FIU) is an independent institution that has helped to eradicate and prevent money laundering crimes based on reports used as evidence or evidence in investigations. PPATK analysis report is made based on the report of the income and expenditure of unusual financial accounts by referring to the profile and identity of the owner. Financial Transactions requested by PPATK to be reported by the reporting party because it involves assets suspected of originating from the proceeds of a criminal offence. FATF has issued 40 specific recommendations (forty recommendations) and the …

Tragedies Of The Cultural Commons, Etienne C. Toussaint

Faculty Publications

In the United States, Black cultural expressions of democratic life that operate within specific historical-local contexts, yet reflect a shared set of sociocultural mores, have been historically crowded out of the law and policymaking process. Instead of democratic cultural discourse occurring within an open and neutral marketplace of ideas, the discursive production and consumption of democratic culture in American politics has been rivalrous. Such rivalry too often enables dominant White supremacist cultural beliefs, values, and practices to exercise their hegemony upon law’s production and meaning. The result has been tragedy for politically disempowered and socioeconomically excluded communities.

This Article uses …

The Role Of Expertise In Evidence Before International Courts: A Comparative Study Between The International Court Of Justice And The Judicial System In The World Trade Organization, Firas Alhasan Mr.

مجلة جامعة الإمارات للبحوث القانونية UAEU LAW JOURNAL

The principle mandate of the international adjudicators (such as judges in the International Court of justice and member of the Panels in the WTO judicial system) is to settle the legal disputes presented to them in a given case. In disputes which involves scientific and technical issues, the adjudicators may have a discretionary power to answer scientific and technical questions in scope of the dispute before them, but it’s unreasonable to think that international adjudicators must have knowledge on the various fields that may be subject to international disputes. Consequently, they will have to seek assistance from experts which importance …

For Whom The Sol Tolls: Examining The Role Of The Discovery Rule And Statutes Of Limitations In Ncaa Concussion Litigation, Joseph Sabin Esq., Andrew L. Goldsmith Ph.D.

UNH Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Creating A System For All Parents: Rethinking Procedural And Evidentiary Rules In Proceedings With Self-Represented Litigants, Cassandra Richards

Dalhousie Law Journal

Through qualitative interviews undertaken with ten judges at the Superior Court of Québec, this study considers the procedural and evidentiary challenges faced by self-represented litigants in family law matters. Subsequently, this paper offers solutions to the problems identified. The goal of this paper is to provide legal participants with concrete techniques to facilitate proceedings with SRLs that uphold their duty of impartiality and duty of assistance. While this article will likely be useful for judges who engage with SRLs daily, it will also be of interest to those working on issues relating to access to justice, SRLs, as well as …

Private Search And Seizure: The Constitutionality Of Anton Piller Orders In Canada, Dimitros Valkanas

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper examines the constitutionality of the Anton Piller order in Canadian law. First, the paper examines whether Anton Piller orders overall are unconstitutional through three major avenues of attack: (i) Charter challenges; (ii) the ultra vires doctrine; and (iii) the principle of natural justice, audi alteram partem. Afterwards, in the event that no challenge against Anton Piller orders broadly would succeed, the paper examines whether their uniquely Canadian variant known as a “rolling” or “John (or Jane) Doe” Anton Piller orders could be challenged, looking at both Charter and non-Charter challenges. Finally, this paper proposes the imposition of additional …

School District Secession In Mobile County, Alabama: A Case Study Of Adaptive Discrimination And Threats To Multiracial Democracy, Sarah Asson, Erica Frankenberg

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

#Wetoo, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

All Faculty Scholarship

The #MeToo movement has caused a widespread cultural reckoning over sexual violence, abuse, and harassment. “Me too” was meant to express and symbolize that each individual victim was not alone in their experiences of sexual harm; they added their voice to others who had faced similar injustices. But viewing the #MeToo movement as a collection of singular voices fails to appreciate that the cases that filled our popular discourse were not cases of individual victims coming forward. Rather, case after case involved multiple victims, typically women, accusing single perpetrators. Victims were believed because there was both safety and strength in …

F.B.I. V. Fazaga: The Secret Of The State-Secrets Privilege, Rebecca Reeves

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

When the government successfully invokes the state-secrets privilege, it allows for evidence to be excluded from trial if making that evidence public would threaten national security. It is unclear, however, under what circumstances this privilege can be invoked, what happens when it is successfully invoked, and what occurs after the evidence is excluded. In Federal Bureau of Investigation v. Fazaga, the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to clarify the state-secrets privilege. Additionally, the Court will be asked to determine whether the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) displaces this privilege when the government invokes it regarding evidence …

The Broken Fourth Amendment Oath, Laurent Sacharoff

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants be supported by “Oath or affirmation.” Under current doctrine, a police officer may swear the oath to obtain a warrant merely by repeating the account of an informant. This Article shows, however, that the Fourth Amendment, as originally understood, required that the real accuser with personal knowledge swear the oath.

That real-accuser requirement persisted for nearly two centuries. Almost all federal courts and most state courts from 1850 to 1960 held that the oath, by its very nature, required a witness with personal knowledge. Only in 1960 did the Supreme Court hold in Jones …

“Reverse” 404(B) Is Not An Evidence Law Issue: A Call To Revive The Compulsory Process Clause As A Vehicle For Evidence Admission, Clay Wilwol

New Mexico Law Review

In criminal cases, Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) is typically used by prosecutors seeking to introduce non-propensity “crimes, wrongs, or other acts” evidence against defendants. However, sometimes it is the defendant who seeks to use the Rule as a vehicle for evidence admissibility, either to provide such evidence to implicate the guilt of a third party or to help prove the intent or motive of alleged victims in violent crimes involving altercations. This latter defense-proffered use of Rule 404(b) has been termed “reverse” 404(b), and currently there is disagreement among courts (both federal and state) regarding how to assess the …

The Living Rules Of Evidence, G. Alexander Nunn

Faculty Scholarship

The jurisprudential evolution of evidence law is dead. At least, that’s what we’re expected to believe. Ushered in on the wings of a growing positivist movement, the enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence purported to quell judicial authority over evidence law. Instead, committees, conferences, and members of Congress would regulate any change to our evidentiary regime, thereby capturing the evolution of evidence law in a single, transparent code.

The codification of evidence law, though, has proven problematic. The arrival of the Federal Rules of Evidence has given rise to a historically anomalous era of relative stagnation in the doctrinal …

The Authenticity Of Visual Recording In Criminal Evidence In Palestinian Legislation, عبدالله ذيب محمود, Osama I. Darraj

AAU Journal of Business and Law مجلة جامعة العين للأعمال والقانون

This study revolves around the authenticity of video recordings before the criminal judiciary in Palestine, as video recordings of all kinds have become widely spread in society, especially with modern technical development, and imaging devices have spread in public and private places, which opened the way to consider the authenticity of these recordings in the event The occurrence of a crime to benefit from it in criminal proof. The Palestinian judiciary has taken the legality of the evidence derived from visual recordings in public places, where it is required that the visual evidence, like the rest of the other evidence, …

The "Unfairness" Proof: Exposing The Fatal Flaw Hidden In The Rule Governing The Use Of Criminal Convictions To Impeach Character For Truthfulness, Robert Steinbuch

Pepperdine Law Review

Federal Rule of Evidence 609 (adopted by various states as well) allows for the introduction of certain convictions at trial to impeach the credibility— i.e., character for truthfulness—of any witness. The rule bifurcates its requirements between those that apply to criminal defendants—who, in theory, are afforded greater protection throughout the law than are all other participants in trials—and all remaining witnesses. The most important distinction between the standards that apply to these two classes of witnesses is that for prior crimes of criminal defendants to be introduced to impeach their credibility, those wrongdoings must survive a special balancing test spelled …

Stereotyping Evidence: The Civil Exception To The Federal Rape Shield Law And Its Embedded Sexual Stereotypes, Ramona Albin

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

[Marked Confidential]: Negative Externalities Of Discovery Secrecy, Gustavo Ribeiro

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Current unprecedented levels of secrecy in civil discovery create significant negative externalities by preventing our adversary system from measuring up to the broad public goals that justify it. First, excessive discovery secrecy undermines the courts and the public’s ability to correct distortions of the truth-seeking function of the adversary system caused by excessive partisanship and confirmation bias. Second, it weakens the adversary system’s promotion of liberal democratic values, such as transparency and self-government. Third, it threatens the adversary system’s role in upholding human dignity, understood either as respect or status. To correct the negative externalities caused by excessive discovery secrecy, …

The Case For The Abolition Of Criminal Confessions, Guha Krishnamurthi

SMU Law Review

Confessions have long been considered the gold standard of evidence in criminal proceedings. But in truth, confession evidence imposes significant harms on our criminal justice system, through false convictions and other violations of defendants’ due process and moral rights. Moreover, our current doctrine is unable to eliminate or even curb these harms.

This Article makes the case for the abolition of confession evidence in criminal proceedings. Though it may seem radical, abolition is sensible and best furthers our penological goals. As a theoretical matter, confession evidence has low probative value, but it is prejudicially overvalued by juries and judges. Consequently, …

The Prosecutor In The Mirror: Conviction Integrity Units And Brady Claims, Lissa Griffin, Daisy Mason

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor has a due process obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence that is material to guilt or punishment. The failure to fulfill this duty is particularly insidious because it bears directly on both whether an innocent defendant may have been convicted as well as on whether the adjudicatory process was fair. The failure to disclose exculpatory evidence has been characterized as “epidemic” and has been documented to have made a major, outsized contribution in cases that resulted in exonerations. It is not surprising, then, that conviction integrity units in prosecutor’s offices …

Criminal Justice Secrets, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The American criminal justice system is cloaked in secrecy. The government employs covert surveillance operations. Grand-jury proceedings are hidden from public view. Prosecutors engage in closed-door plea-bargaining and bury exculpatory evidence. Juries convict defendants on secret evidence. Jury deliberations are a black box. And jails and prisons implement clandestine punishment practices. Although there are some justifications for this secrecy, the ubiquitous nature of it is contrary to this nation’s Founders’ steadfast belief in the transparency of criminal justice proceedings. Further, the pervasiveness of secrecy within today’s criminal justice system raises serious constitutional concerns. The accumulation of secrecy and the aggregation …

Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: 'Radical Imagination, Radical Listening', Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Entity Attorney-Client Privilege Meets The Twenty-First Century: Rethinking Functional Equivalent Analysis In The Time Of A Nonemployee Workforce., Grace M. Giesel

Faculty Scholarship

Courts have struggled with whether an entity’s attorney-client privilege can protect communications between the entity’s lawyer and a nonemployee who has information the entity’s lawyer needs to best advise the entity. The nonemployee might be a former employee. But increasingly in recent times, the nonemployee is an individual who was never an entity employee. Corporations and other entities have incorporated nonemployees in their economic enterprises in all sorts of roles—roles employees may have held in the past. Many courts have accepted that the privilege can apply to communications involving former employees.

When faced with nonemployees who are not former employees, …