Evidence Commons^™

The Expanding Duties Of Esi And In-House Counsel: Providing Defensible Preservation And Production Efforts After Swofford V. Eslinger, David W. Degnan

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

As a general rule, companies and government agencies should plan for preservation and production before litigation is probable. This means having a document retention program. These programs ensure that documents are retained or deleted in an orderly fashion. If a company properly follows its policies and procedures, this retention program acts as a “shield” against the incomplete preservation of relevant (or “hot”) documents deleted before the proper initiation of a litigation hold. If parties do not follow, or inconsistently follow, such a program, they might have to explain what happened to a missing relevant document. Thus, a retention program might …

Electronic Evidence Annotated Bibliography, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Stepping Out Of The Vehicle: The Potential Of Arizona V. Gant To End Automatic Searches Incident To Arrest Beyond The Vehicular Context , Angad Singh

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Al-Iqrar Fi Ithbat Al-Da`Wa Fi Al-Qadaya Al-Madinah : Dirasah Muqaranah Bayna Al-Qanun Al-Madani Al-Irani Wa-Al-Madhahib Al-Khamsah., Ghotbaddin Zahedian

Student Works (2010-2019)

The dissertation is a comparison study between madhahib fiqhiyyah (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafe'i, Hanbali, Ja’fari) and the Iranian Civil Code with regards to confession of patient, bankrupt, infant, fool, and the confession of kinship. The study is theoretical, aiming at evaluating the influence of the Ja’fari’s and another four schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali) on the Iranian Civil Code. In addition, the study attempts to identify the similarities and differences between the four schools of Sunni and Shiah Ja’fari in confession in civil cases. It has been done by comparing civil issues between the four schools of Ahl …

Scientific Evidence In Criminal Prosecutions - A Retrospective, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Anticipation Misconception, Colin P. Marks

Faculty Works

Many commentators and courts have cited to the Supreme Court decision of Hickman v. Taylor as the genesis of the work product doctrine and the requirement that, to be afforded protection, the material in question must be generated “in anticipation of litigation.” The oft quoted policy justification for the protection afforded is that attorneys should be allowed a “zone of privacy” within which to prepare their case for the client. This justification supports limiting protection only to work generated “in anticipation of litigation,” because, presumably, outside of this context there is no need for the “zone of privacy.” However, a …

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 …

Her Last Words: Dying Declarations And Modern Confrontation Jurisprudence, Aviva A. Orenstein

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Dying declarations have taken on increased importance since the Supreme Court indicated that even if testimonial, they may present a unique exception to its new confrontation jurisprudence. Starting with Crawford v. Washington in 2004, the Court has developed strict rules concerning the use of testimonial statements made by unavailable declarants. Generally, testimonial statements (those made with the expectation that they will be used to prosecute the accused) may be admitted only if they were previously subject to cross examination. The only exceptions appear to be dying declarations and forfeiture by wrongdoing if the accused intentionally rendered the declarant unavailable.

This …

Relative Doubt: Familial Searches Of Dna Databases, Erin Murphy

Michigan Law Review

The continued growth of forensic DNA databases has brought about greater interest in a search method known as "familial" or "kinship" matching. Whereas a typical database search seeks the source of a crime-scene stain by making an exact match between a known person and the DNA sample, familial searching instead looks for partial matches in order to find potential relatives of the source. The use of a familial DNA search to identify the alleged "Grim Sleeper" killer in California brought national attention to the method, which has many proponents. In contrast, this Article argues against the practice of familial searching …

District Attorney’S Office For The Third Judicial District V. Osborne: Leaving Prisoners’ Access To Dna Evidence In Limbo, Alexandra Millard

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Expert Testimony In Child Sexual Abuse Litigation: Consensus And Confusion, John E.B. Myers

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Herring V. United States: Mapp's "Artless" Overruling?, Michael Vitiello

Nevada Law Journal

The central thesis of this essay is that, consistent with the “art of overruling,” the Court could have limited Mapp, for example, by extending the good-faith reasonable mistake rationale that animates cases like United States v. Leon. As developed below, the facts of Herring are quite similar to the facts of other cases where the Court upheld police conduct that, although erroneous, seemed reasonable; accordingly, excluding the illegally obtained evidence had no value as a deterrent of future conduct in light of the reasonableness of the police officer's mistake. However, Herring goes much further and points towards a much greater …

Crime Music, Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Distribution, I Presume: A Role For Presumptions In Establishing The "Making Available" Right, Joe Weissman

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Truth Or Consequences: Self-Incriminating Statements And Informant Veracity, Mary Nicol Bowman

Faculty Articles

Courts treat self-incriminating statements by criminal informants as a significant factor favoring the reliability of the informant’s information when making probable cause determinations for the issuance of search warrants. Courts do so even though admissions of criminal activity usually undercut, rather than support, credibility. In using self-incriminating statements to support the informant’s reliability, courts tend to rely on a theory with significant theoretical flaws. Furthermore, recent United States Supreme Court jurisprudence in other contexts undercuts the reliability of using self-incriminating statements to support the veracity of other information. If courts adequately scrutinize the informant’s self-incriminating statements and the circumstances surrounding …

Countermeasure Mechanisms In A P300-Based Concealed Information Test, John B. Meixner Jr., J. Peter Rosenfeld

Scholarly Works

The detection of deception has been the focus of much research in the past 20 years. Though much controversy has surrounded one deception detection protocol, the “Control Question Test” (NRC 2003, Ben-Shakhar 2002), an alternative test, the Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT), developed by Lykken (1959, 1960), is based on scientific principles and has been well-received in the scientific community. The GKT presents subjects with various stimuli, one of which is a guilty knowledge item (termed the probe, such as the gun used to commit a crime). The other stimuli in the test consist of control items that are of the …

"I'M Dying To Tell You What Happened": The Admissibility Of Testimonial Dying Declarations Post-Crawford, Peter Nicolas

Articles

This Article demonstrates the existence and delineates the scope of a federal constitutional definition of "dying declarations" that is distinct from the definitions set forth in the Federal Rules of Evidence and their state counterparts. This Article further demonstrates that states have state constitutional definitions of "dying declarations" (for purposes of interpreting state constitutional analogues to the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment) that may differ in important respects from the federal constitutional definition of "dying declarations."

This Article then shows that some of the definitions of "dying declarations" contained in federal and state hearsay exceptions exceed the federal and …

Another "Straightforward Application": The Impact Of Melendez-Diaz On Forensic Testing And Expert Testimony In Controlled Substance Cases, John Wait

Campbell Law Review

Part I of this Article will analyze Melendez-Diaz with a focus on extracting indicators within the opinion that lend guidance as to how the opinion could be extended to Bullcoming and to expert testimony based on forensic reports in controlled substance cases. Part II will provide an overview of the tests utilized by the SBI to determine the nature and quantity, if any, of suspected controlled substances with the goal of ascertaining who, under Melendez-Diaz, should be subject to confrontation. Part III will provide a prediction of the outcome in Bullcoming. Finally, Part IV will review the pending cases from …

C.S.I. Bulls#!T: The National Academy Of Sciences, Melendedez-Diaz V. Massachusetts, And Future Challenges To Forensic Science And Forensic Evidence,, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.