Evidence Commons^™

A Trail To Modernity: Observations On The New Developments Of China's Evidence Legislation Movement In A Global Context, Jia Li, Zhuhao Wang

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

China, like most other civil law countries, does not have a discrete evidence code. Rather, Chinese evidence rules are currently scattered among various procedural codes. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Chinese scholars and practitioners have advocated for specialized evidence legislation. As part of this movement, China issued numerous judicial interpretations of evidence law, amendments to existing procedural law, and experimental drafts of evidence statutes. For example, new amendments to the Civil Procedure Law and to the Criminal Procedure Law became effective on January 1, 2013. More recently, the Supreme People's Court led the efforts to create two experimental …

Trial By Google: Judicial Notice In The Information Age, Jeffrey Bellin, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Faculty Publications

This Article presents a theory of judicial notice for the information age. It argues that the ease of accessing factual data on the Internet allows judges and litigants to expand the use of judicial notice in ways that raise significant concerns about admissibility, reliability, and fair process. State and federal courts are already applying the surprisingly pliant judicial notice rules to bring websites ranging from Google Maps to Wikipedia into the courtroom, and these decisions will only increase in frequency in coming years. This rapidly emerging judicial phenomenon is notable for its ad hoc and conclusory nature—attributes that have the …

Cultural Pluralism In Criminal Defense: An Inner Conflict Of The Liberal Paradigm, Sam Beyea

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The note critically examines the cultural defense in American jurisprudence, highlighting its controversial role in criminal cases. While proponents argue that it promotes individualized justice in a diverse society, critics contend that it undermines legal equality, perpetuates stereotypes, and erodes the moral and deterrent functions of criminal law. The analysis explores the tension between cultural plurality and the universal application of legal principles, ultimately advocating for a more constrained approach to the use of cultural evidence in criminal proceedings.

Singapore's New Discretionary Death Penalty For Drug Couriers: Public Prosecutor V Chum Tat Suan, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The article offers information on the history, evolution and significance of the new discretionary death penalty legislation for drug couriers in Singapore under the application of the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA). It discusses the judicial decision of the Singaporean High Court in the case of Public Prosecutor v. Chum Tat Suan in which the Court convicted the accused with chareges of importing of more than 94.96g of diamorphine into Singapore that was punishable under section 33 of the MDA.

The Conversational Consent Search: How “Quick Look” And Other Similar Searches Have Eroded Our Constitutional Rights, Alexander A. Mikhalevsky

Georgia State University Law Review

One area in which law enforcement agencies have stretched constitutional limits concerns the scope of a suspect’s consent to search his or her vehicle. Police forces across the country have tested the limits of consent by asking vague, conversational questions to suspects with the goal of obtaining a suspect’s consent to search, even though that individual may not want to allow the search or may not know that he or she has the right to deny consent.

Conversational phrases like “Can I take a quick look?” or “Can I take a quick look around?” have “emerg[ed] as . . . …

Disparate Treatment Of Disparate Treatment: Harmonizing Title Vii Pretext And Mixed-Motive Jury Instruction Causation Standards In Light Of Staub V. Memorial Hospital, Eric Rosoff

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Summary Of L.V. Dev. Assocs. V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 37, Ryan Becklean

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined whether NRS 50.125 applies to depositions.

Supreme Court Of New York, Bronx County, People V. Womack, Barry M. Frankenstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, Third Department, People V. Smith, Jennifer Belk

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court, New York County, Hughes V. Farrey, Eric Pack

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, Fourth Department, People V. Hall, Eric Pack

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals Of New York - People V. Nieves-Andino, Jason Gines

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Mother's Day Column: Parent-Child Evidentiary Privilege In Montana, Cynthia Ford

Faculty Journal Articles & Other Writings

In this article the author examines the lack of parent-child evidentiary privilege in Montana.

Absolute Immunity: General Principles And Recent Developments, Erwin Chemerinsky

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Coleman V. State, 130 Nev. Adv. Op. 26, Ryan Becklean

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined three issues: (1) whether there was sufficient evidence to support a conviction of first-degree murder by child abuse; (2) whether NRS 51.345 is constitutional; and (3) whether NRS 51.345 was properly applied by the trial court to exclude testimony in this case.

Hidden Home Videos: Surreptitious Video Surveillance In Divorce, Rebecca V. Lyon

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In divorce court, often a very contentious and emotional court, parties frequently use what they can to gain the upper hand. The invention of new technology gives them an even wider arsenal. While tracking each other on the computer or checking phone records has become common, courts are now encountering instances where one spouse has placed hidden video cameras around the house to catch the other spouse doing something wrong. Under many state laws, courts have been forced to conclude that the surreptitious video recordings are not illegal. Perhaps more surprisingly, a few courts have concluded that the law either …

Expanding The After-Acquired Evidence Defense To Include Post-Termination Misconduct, Holly G. Eubanks

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In 1995, the United States Supreme Court formulated the after-acquired evidence defense in employment discrimination litigation. The defense, if successfully established, allows the defendant to limit the damages available to the plaintiff. In order to assert the defense, a defendant must establish that it would have terminated the plaintiff based on after-acquired evidence of wrongdoing if the defendant had known of the wrongdoing prior to the termination. The defense, as generally accepted, applies to misconduct that occurs during employment and misconduct that occurs prior to employment in the application process. This note considers the potential expansion of the defense to …

Futility Of Exhaustion: Why Brady Claims Should Trump Federal Exhaustion Requirements, Tiffany R. Murphy

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A defendant’s Fourteenth Amendment due process rights are violated when a state agency fails to disclose crucial exculpatory or impeachment evidence — so-called Brady violations. When this happens, the defendant should be provided the means not only to locate this evidence, but also to fully develop it in state post-conviction processes. When the state system prohibits both the means and legal mechanism to develop Brady claims, the defendant should be immune to any procedural penalties in either state or federal court. In other words, the defendant should not be required to return to state court to exhaust such a claim. …

Making The Right Call For Confrontation At Felony Sentencing, Shaakirrah R. Sanders

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Felony sentencing courts have discretion to increase punishment based on un-cross-examined testimonial statements about several categories of uncharged, dismissed, or otherwise unproven criminal conduct. Denying defendants an opportunity to cross-examine these categories of sentencing evidence undermines a core principle of natural law as adopted in the Sixth Amendment: those accused of felony crimes have the right to confront adversarial witnesses. This Article contributes to the scholarship surrounding confrontation rights at felony sentencing by cautioning against continued adherence to the most historic Supreme Court case on this issue, Williams v. New York. This Article does so for reasons beyond the unacknowledged …

Introduction To The Symposium On Child Witnesses In Sexual Abuse Cases, Carl T. Bogus

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Banality Of Wrongful Executions, Brandon L. Garrett

Michigan Law Review

What is so haunting about the known wrongful convictions is that those cases are the tip of the iceberg. Untold numbers of unnoticed errors may send the innocent to prison — and to the death chamber. That is why I recommend to readers a trilogy of fascinating new books that peer deeper into this larger but murkier problem. Outside the rarified group of highly publicized exonerations, which have themselves done much to attract attention to the causes of wrongful convictions, errors may be so mundane that no one notices them unless an outsider plucks a case from darkness and holds …

Presentation To The Advisory Committee On Evidence Rules, Jeffrey Bellin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

JUDGE FITZWATER: Good morning, everyone. On behalf of Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, and the members of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure of the Judicial Conference of the United States, my colleagues on the Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules, and our Committee Reporter, Professor Dan Capra, welcome to the Symposium on the Challenges of Electronic Evidence. We are indebted to the University of Maine School of Law for its willingness to host this symposium, not once, but twice, because we were scheduled to hold the symposium last October before the government shutdown caused it to be cancelled. I …

Digital Forensic Evidence In The Courtroom: Understanding Content And Quality, Daniel B. Garrie, J. David Morrissy

Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property

With the widespread permeation of continually advancing technologies into our daily lives, it is inevitable that the product of those technologies, i.e. digital information, makes its way into the courtroom. This has largely occurred in the form of electronic discovery, or “e-discovery,” where each party involved in an action provides the relevant information they possess electronically. However, in cases where information is hidden, erased, or otherwise altered, digital forensic analysis is necessary to draw further conclusions about the available evidence. Digital forensic analysis is analogous to more traditional forensic analysis. For example, in criminal cases where a firearm was used …

Unconstitutionality And The Rule Of Wide-Open Cross-Examination: Encroaching On The Fifth Amendment When Examining The Accused, Ronald L. Carlson, Michael S. Carlson

Scholarly Works

When Georgia adopted a new evidence code on January 1, 2013, it embraced the rule on scope of cross-examination which local courts have traditionally followed. This is the wide-open rule which permits the cross-examiner to range across the entire case, no matter how limited the direct exam. Subjects foreign to the direct can be freely explored, limited only by the rule of relevancy.

Commentators have associated the majority, more limited cross-examination methodology with American jurisprudence and the wide-ranging approach with English courts. Reflecting this divide, the Supreme Court of South Dakota recognized "two principal schools of thought" when it comes …

Remaking Mexico: Law Reform As Foreign Policy, Deborah M. Weissman

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conflicting Confrontation Clause Concerns: The Admissibility Of Hospital Records Versus A Defendant's Right To Confrontation, Susan Barlow

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Admissibility Of Field Test Results At Trial To Prove Intoxication, Vincent J. Costa

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Federal Retreat From Protecting Defendants From Tainted Show-Up Identifications And The Superiority Of New York's Approach, Stephan Josephs

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prearraignment Lineup Procedures: Are Multiple Lineups Unduly Suggestive Or Sufficiently Reliable?, Jared R. Artura

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is New York Achieving More Reliable And Just Convictions When The Admissibility Of A Suggestive Pretrial Identification Is At Issue?, Matthew Gordon

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.