Evidence Commons^™

Child Witnesses In Sexual Abuse Criminal Proceedings: Their Capabilities, Special Problems, And Proposals For Reform, Dominic J. Fote

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

More Than A "Quick Glimpse Of The Life": The Relationship Between Victim Impact Evidence And Death Sentencing, Jerome E. Deise, Raymond Paternoster

Faculty Scholarship

In striking down the use of victim impact evidence (VIE) during the penalty phase of a capital trial, the Supreme Court in Booth v. Maryland and South Carolina v. Gathers argued that such testimony would appeal to the emotions of jurors with the consequence that death sentences would not be based upon a reasoned consideration of the blameworthiness of the offender. After a change in personnel, the Court overturned both decisions in Payne v. Tennessee, decided just two years after Gathers. The majority in Payne were decidedly less concerned with the emotional appeal of VIE, arguing that it would only …

The Promise And Pitfalls Of Empiricism In Educational Equality Jurisprudence, Lia Epperson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Giving Purpose To Your Life As A Legal Writer, David Spratt

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Empirical Fallacies Of Evidence Law: A Critical Look At The Admission Of Prior Sex Crimes, Tamara Rice Lave, Aviva Orenstein

Articles

In a significant break with traditional evidence rules and policies, Federal Rules of Evidence 413-414 allow jurors to use the accused's prior sexual misconduct as evidence of character and propensity to commit the sex crime charged. As reflected in their legislative history, these propensity rules rest on the assumption that sexual predators represent a small number of highly deviant and recidivistic offenders. This view of who commits sex crimes justified the passage of the sex-crime propensity rules and continues to influence their continuing adoption among the states and the way courts assess such evidence under Rule 403. In depending on …

To Testify Or Not To Testify: The Dilemma Facing Children With Multiple Cases Before The Same Judge In Delinquency Court, Katherine I. Puzone

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Social Media In The Sunshine: Discovery And Ethics Of Social Media - Florida's Right To Privacy Should Change The Analysis, Spencer Kuvin, Chelsea Silvia

St. Thomas Law Review

The question is whether the liberal discovery rules have gone too far and where the line should be drawn in Florida to protect the privacy interests of individuals from being implicated by overly permissive rules of discovery. Current case law on this issue is informative, but demonstrates that courts need direction on how to decide these complex issues in a uniform manner. The courts that have rendered decisions regarding discovery of social networking sites ("SNS") have made attempts to balance individual privacy interests in the information contained on the SNS with the broad rules of discovery. Focusing on Florida law, …

Fifty: Shades Of Grey--Uncertainty About Extrinsic Evidence And Parol Evidence After All These Ucc Years, David G. Epstein

Law Faculty Publications

Lawyers and judges have been working with the Uniform Commercial Code for about fifty years. Most states adopted the Uniform Commercial Code between 1960 and 1965.

Notwithstanding these years of experience and the importance of certainty to parties entering into commercial transactions, there is still considerable confusion over the use of extrinsic evidence, parol evidence and the parol evidence rule in answering the questions (1) what are the terms of a contract for the sale of goods and (2) what do those contract terms mean. No "black and white rules"-just various "shades of grey."

This essay explores the reasons for …

Getting Beyond Intuition In The Probable Cause Inquiry, Erica R. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Courts are proudly resigned to the fact that the probable cause inquiry is “nontechnical.” In order to conduct a search or make an arrest, police need to satisfy the probable cause standard, which the Supreme Court has deemed “incapable of precise definition or quantification into percentages.” The flexibility of this standard enables courts to defer to police officers’ reasonable judgments and expert intuitions in unique situations. However, police officers are increasingly using investigative techniques that replace their own observational skills with test results from some other source, such as drug sniffing dogs, facial recognition technology, and DNA matching. The reliability …

Five Answers And Three Questions After United States V. Jones (2012), The Fourth Amendment Gps Case, Benjamin Priester

Journal Publications

Each year, the United States Supreme Court's docket includes a range of "high profile" cases that attract attention not merely from law professors and others with an acquired fascination with the Court, but also from a general audience of law students, lawyers, scholars and commentators on American politics and society, as well as, occasionally, the public at large. During the 2011 Term, one of those cases was "the GPS case," formally known as United States v. Jones.' Media coverage of the case spread far beyond the legal blogosphere to a wide variety of mainstream and popular sources, both in print …

Introduction: Persecution Through Prosecution: Revisiting Touro Law Center’S Conference In Paris On The Dreyfus Affair And The Leo Frank Trial, Rodger D. Citron

Touro Law Review

This piece provides the introduction for the Dreyfus affair. It gives a brief overview of the actual Dreyfus affair and outlines the articles in this volume.

Visual Jurisprudence, Richard Sherwin

Articles & Chapters

Lawyers, judges, and jurors face a vast array of visual evidence and visual argument inside the contemporary courtroom. From videos documenting crimes and accidents to computer displays of their digital simulation, increasingly, the search for fact-based justice is becoming an offshoot of visual meaning making. But when law migrates to the screen it lives there as other images do, motivating belief and judgment on the basis of visual delight and unconscious fantasies and desires as well as actualities. Law as image also shares broader cultural anxieties concerning not only the truth of the image, but also the mimetic capacity itself, …

Modernizing Jury Instructions In The Age Of Social Media, David Aaronson, Sydney Patterson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Logic, Not Evidence, Supports A Change In Expert Testimony Standards: Why Evidentiary Standards Promulgated By The Supreme Court For Scientific Expert Testimony Are Inappropriate And Inefficient When Applied In Patent Infringement Suits, Claire R. Rollor

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

Can Law And Literature Be Practical? The Crucible And The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Martin H. Pritikin

West Virginia Law Review

Counter-intuitively, one of the best ways to learn the practice-oriented topic of evidence may be by studying a work of fiction-specifically, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which dramatizes the seventeenth-century Salem witch trials. The play puts the reader in the position of legal advocate, and invites strategic analysis of evidentiary issues. A close analysis of the dialogue presents an opportunity to explore both the doctrinal nuances of and policy considerations underlying the most important topics covered by the Federal Rules of Evidence, including the mode and order of interrogation, relevance, character evidence and impeachment, opinion testimony, and hearsay.

The Nursing Standard Of Care In Illinois: Rethinking The Wingo Exception In The Wake Of Sullivan V. Edward Hospital, Emily Chase-Sosnoff

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This note analyzes the current circuit split among Illinois courts over whether the same-license requirement for medical expert testimony applies to testimony about the standard of care for nurse-doctor communications. Part I traces the history of the problem by explaining the original same-license requirement, the Wingo exception for nurse-doctor communications, and the Illinois Supreme Court's decision in Sullivan, which cast doubt on Wingo's continued survival. Part II illustrates the nature of the circuit split by describing the lower courts' three distinct interpretations of Sullivan. Finally, Part III argues that courts should apply Sullivan strictly and abandon the Wingo exception because …

The Incredible Shrinking Confrontation Clause, Jeffrey Bellin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Sharp turns in the Supreme Court's recent Confrontation Clause jurisprudence have left scholars reeling from conflicting emotions: exhilaration, despair, denial, and soon, perhaps, cynical acceptance. While most commentators celebrated the demise of the incoherent Ohio v. Roberts framework, their excitement largely faded as the Court's decisions in Davis v. Washington and Bryant v. Michigan revealed nascent flaws in the evolving doctrine and sharply curtailed the newly revitalized confrontation right.

Recent scholarship strives to reanimate the jurisprudence by expanding the doctrinal definition of "testimonial" statements - the sole form of evidence Associate Professor, William & Mary Law School. I would like …

Adult Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse And The Statute Of Limitations: The Need For Consistent Application Of The Delayed Discovery Rule, Gregory G. Gordon

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Psychotherapist And Patient In The California Supreme Court: Ground Lost And Ground Regained, Stanley Mosk

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Victim Harm, Retributivism And Capital Punishment: A Philosophy Critique Of Payne V. Tennessee , R. P. Peerenboom

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Scientific Evidence In The Age Of Daubert: A Proposal For A Dual Standard Of Admissibility In Civil And Criminal Cases , William P. Haney Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Searches, Federal Cases, And Choice Of Law: Just A Little Respect, John B. Corr

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

It Is Broken: Breaking The Inertia Of The Exclusionary Rule, L. Timothy Perrin, H. Mitchell Caldwell, Carol A. Chase

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Optimum Remedy For Constitutional Breaches: Multiaccessed Civil Penalties In Equity, Robert C. Fellmeth

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Exclusionary Rule: Fix It, But Fix It Right - A Critique Of If It's Broken, Fix It: Moving Beyond The Exclusionary Rule, Gregory D. Totten, Peter D. Kossoris, Ebbe B. Ebbesen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Administrative Replacements: How Much Can They Do?, Laurie L. Levenson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

How To Move Beyond The Exclusionary Rule: Structuring Judicial Response To Legislative Reform Efforts, Harold J. Krent

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judicial Review And The Exclusionary Rule, Morgan Cloud

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Being Empirical, Michael Heise

Pepperdine Law Review

Legal scholarship is becoming increasingly empirical. Although empirical methodologies gain important influence within the legal academy, their application in legal research remains underdeveloped. This paper surveys and analyzes the state of empirical legal scholarship and explores possible influences on its production. The paper advances a normative argument for increased empirical legal scholarship.

Moving Further Beyond, Thomas M. Reavley

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.