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Interpretation Of The Kentucky Rules Of Evidence—What Happened To The Common Law?, Robert G. Lawson
Interpretation Of The Kentucky Rules Of Evidence—What Happened To The Common Law?, Robert G. Lawson
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
The Kentucky Rules of Evidence, which became effective on July 1, 1992, dramatically transformed the method by which lawyers and judges address evidence issues. Before the adoption of the Rules, the law of evidence consisted mostly of a vast collection of common law rulings, accumulated over two centuries and inaccessible to lawyers and judges for all practical purposes. In addressing an evidence issue, participants had to first deal with the problem of "finding" the law-distilling from a morass of conflicting common law precedents the ones applicable to the issue at hand, a task regularly producing contention rather than agreement and, …
"X-Spurt" Witnesses, Richard H. Underwood
"X-Spurt" Witnesses, Richard H. Underwood
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
In this article the author pulls together a history of expert witnesses in common law systems. Various issues are explored regarding expert witness testimony, including: the historical underpinnings of the practice, how Daubert controls that issue in modern times, rules of evidence, psychological science, and professional ethics.
Credibility And Character: A Different Look At An Interminable Problem, Robert G. Lawson
Credibility And Character: A Different Look At An Interminable Problem, Robert G. Lawson
Law Faculty Scholarly Articles
The problems of character evidence "resolved" by the new Federal Rules are problems that involve the structure of human personality. The judgmental processing by jurors of character information involves a behavioral transaction called interpersonal perception. Each of these psychological problems has been intensively investigated for nearly 40 years. As the character problems of the law now take on the appearance of having been solved, there is not the slightest indication that the results of this scientific endeavor influenced the choices made by the law. The solutions to these problems composed by the Judicial Conference and embraced by the Supreme Court …