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Full-Text Articles in Law
Prosecutorial Storytelling Through Intrinsic Evidence, Brian Chen
Prosecutorial Storytelling Through Intrinsic Evidence, Brian Chen
Pepperdine Law Review
Crimes make for compelling stories. So juries make for an eager audience. Jurors want to—indeed, expect to—learn what the defendant did, how they did it, and why they deserve punishment. Capable prosecutors know how to deliver. Trial narratives empower jurors to link discrete pieces of evidence and infer facts from circumstantial proof. Only then can they render a verdict consistent with their sense of justice. Federal courts thus afford wide leeway for prosecutors to present their case as they please, with the evidence at their disposal. The Federal Rules of Evidence delineates the scope of that discretion. Under Rule 404(b), …
Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Always Hurt Me: Why California Should Expand The Admissibility Of Prior Acts Of Child Abuse, Lindsay Gochnour
Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Always Hurt Me: Why California Should Expand The Admissibility Of Prior Acts Of Child Abuse, Lindsay Gochnour
Pepperdine Law Review
This Comment seeks to explore the effect that the admissibility of prior bad acts evidence would have on child maltreatment cases and the benefits that would be afforded to child abuse victims if they were provided the same legal protections as victims of other crimes. This Comment argues that expanding the California Evidence Code to allow the admission of prior acts of psychological and emotional child maltreatment would make great progress for the protection of child abuse victims and the prosecution of their (often losing) cases.
Impeachable Offenses?: Why Civil Parties In Quasi-Criminal Cases Should Be Treated Like Criminal Defendants Under The Felony Impeachment Rule, Colin Miller
Pepperdine Law Review
With one exception, every Federal Rule of Evidence dealing with propensity character evidence or evidence which can be misused as propensity character evidence makes it either: (a) as difficult to admit such evidence in civil trials as it is in criminal trials, or (b) more difficult to admit such evidence in civil trials than it is in criminal trials. The "mercy rule" falls into this latter category as it allows criminal defendants to inject the issue of character into their trials while a similar luxury is not afforded to civil parties. Before 2006, however, a substantial minority of courts extended …