Evidence Commons^™

Much Uncertainty About Uncertain Tax Positions, Robert D. Probasco

Faculty Scholarship

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced in January 2010 a new initiative to require certain businesses to report “uncertain tax positions” on a new schedule filed with their annual tax returns. Draft schedules and instructions issued in April 2010 clarified some of the mechanical aspects of the new requirement but left many open issues and questions. The IRS proposal built on requirements by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in FASB Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes (“FIN 48”). The standard requires companies, in their financial statements, to reserve some of the benefits from any position taken …

Constructing Systemic Safeguards Against Informant Perjury, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

Reliance on an informant's testimony as the primary basis for charging and convicting the accused is fraught with problems. While the hypothetical explicitly addresses the ethical dilemmas defense counsel faces when her client is trading false testimony in exchange for a reduced charge and shorter sentence, the hypothetical also implicitly illustrates the inadequacies of our criminal justice system's current handling of testimony from cooperating witnesses.

The focus on the ethical, and perhaps moral, obligations of Lawyer representing a potentially perjurious Client begs larger questions. Are there safeguards the prosecutor's office could employ to ensure that the trial prosecutor, who is …

The Disordered And Discredited Plaintiff: Psychiatric Evidence In Civil Litigation, Deirdre M. Smith

Cardozo Law Review

This Article examines civil defendants' use of evidence of a plaintiff's alleged current or prior psychiatric diagnosis or treatment by analyzing and critiquing the three primary rationales offered in support of the relevancy of such evidence: (1) to suggest an alternative cause of the plaintiff's alleged psychological injuries; (2) to impeach the plaintiff's credibility by asserting that a mental illness interferes with the plaintiff's ability to recount or to perceive events accurately; and (3) to reveal certain propensities that inform how the plaintiff likely acted with respect to the events at issue in the litigation. While attaching a label of …

The Confrontation Clause And The Hearsay Rule: What Hearsay Exceptions Are Testimonial?, Paul W. Grimm, Jerome E. Deise, John R. Grimm

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Electronic Records And The Law Of Evidence In Canada: The Uniform Electronic Evidence Act Twelve Years Later, Luciana Duranti, Corinne M. Rogers, Anthony F. Sheppard

All Faculty Publications

This article analyzes the adequacy of The Uniform Electronic Evidence Act, twelve years after its adoption, in dealing with the complexity of the records created, used, or stored in the digital environment. In the face of rapidly changing technology, the authors believe that the nature and characteristics of electronic records cannot be accounted for by simple modifications to the existing law of evidence, but require a new enactment following upon a close collaboration among records professions, legal and law enforcement professions, and the information technology profession. The new rules, comprehensively encompassing issues of relevance, admissibility, and weight of electronic documentary …

A Second Chance At Justice: Why States Should Adopt Aba Model Rules Of Professional Conduct 3.8(G) And (H), Michele K. Mulhausen

University of Colorado Law Review

Prosecutors, defense attorneys, jurists, and citizens alike cringe at the thought of their fellow citizens serving criminal sentences for crimes that they did not commit. Unfortunately, evidence sometimes emerges after conviction that would exonerate the defendant. As a result, in February 2008, the American Bar Association adopted two amendments, (g) and (h), to the existing Model Rule 3.8, which governs the conduct of prosecutors. The two amendments place an affirmative duty on prosecutors to investigate "new, credible and material evidence." If the evidence creates a "reasonable likelihood" that the convicted defendant did not commit the crime, the prosecutor must "seek …