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Evidence (Pace Law School) Part 1 > Relevance > Flashcards

Relevance Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the first barrier of evidence

A

Relevance

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2
Q

FRE 401: Relevance

A

Relevance=tends to prove a fact which is in dispute

  • If an item of evidence tends to prove or to disprove any proposition, it is relevant to that proposition.
  • If the proposition itself is one provable in the case at bar, or if it in turn forms a further link in a chain of proof the final proposition of which is provable in the case at bar  the offered item of evidence had probative value in case.
  • Evidence is not relevant intrinsically (can’t look at itself, look at it relationally)
    *- Judge has huge discretion
    * - Appeals court must find clear abuse of discrestion -> only if judge made an error stemming from an unreasonable understanding of the facts or unreasonable applicaiton of the law.
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3
Q

FRE 401

A

Test For Relevant Evidence

Evidence is relevant if:
(a) it has ANY tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence;
- Does this evidence have any tendency to prove the issue better?
AND
(b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action
- Must be an actual issue in the case  Does this proof go to a MATERIAL issue in the case?
- If the evidence has some form of importance in determining something, it is relevant. (LOW THRESHOLD)

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4
Q

FRE 401: Relevance (Continue)

A
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5
Q

401 Analysis

A
  1. Ask yourself why the evidence is being offered.
  2. Look for materiality
  3. Look for probativeness
  4. if the evidence is material and probative, it is relevant
  5. Determine whether the evidence is direct or circumstantial.
    - If it is direct evidence on an issue of consequence, the evidence is admissble.
    - If it is circumstanial evidence, the evidence must be rationally helpful where you must make an inference to determine relevancy.
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6
Q

FRE 401: Breaking Down Materiality and Relevance

A
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7
Q

FRE 401: Materiality

A
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8
Q

FRE 402: General Admissibility of Relevant Evidence

A

Relevant evidence is admissible UNLESS BARRED any of by the following:
* The U.S. Constitution
* A federal statute
* These rules; or
* Other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court
* If evidence passes FRE 401, it can be limited by 402 and by 403 balancing
- Not all relevant evidence is admissble

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9
Q

FRE 403: Excluding Relevant evidence for prejudice, Confusion, Waste of Time ir Ither Reason (Balancing Test)

A
  • The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.
  • FRE 403 is the last barrier for evidence to be admitted into trial.
    - When we got to 403, wee assume that the evidence is relevent, so now we are at the stage where the judge must decide whether there is probative evidence to exclude it.
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10
Q

FRE 105: Limiting Evidence that is not admissible Against other parties or for ohter purpose

A
  • If the court admits evidence that is admissble against a party or for a purpose- but not against another party or for another purpose the court, on timely request, must restrict the evidence to its propoer scope and instruct the jury according.
    1. * Limiting instruction can be given to alleviate unfair prejudice.
    2. Judge will narrow down the evidence to tailor the purpose or party.
    3. Issue: if you tell jury not to think about somthing they are going to think about it.
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11
Q

FRE 104: Preliminary Questions

A
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12
Q

Authentication

FRE 901

A

Authenticating or Identifying Evidence

(a). In general: To satisfy the requirment of authenticating or identifying an item of evidence, the proponent must produce evidence sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponenet claims it is.

(b) Examples: The following are examples only not a complete list of evidence that satisfies the requirment.

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13
Q

Authentication

FRE 902

A

Evidence that is Self- Authenticating

  • The following items of evidence are self-authenticating; they require no extrinsic evidence of authenticity inorder to be admitted.
  1. Domestic Public Documents That Are Sealed and Signed
  2. Domestic Public Documents That are not sealed but are signed and certified
    3.
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14
Q

Character Evidence
FRE 404

A

Character Evidence, Crimes or Other Acts

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15
Q

Subsequent Remedial Measures
FRE 407

A
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16
Q

Compromise Offers and Negotiations
FRE 408

A
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17
Q

Payment of medical expense
FRE 409

A
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18
Q

Guilty Pleas
FRE 410

A
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19
Q

Liability Insurance
FRE 411

A

LIABILITY INSURANCE (411)

   FRE 411: LIABILITY INSURANCE Evidence that a person was or was not insured against liability is not admissible to prove whether the person acted negligently or otherwise wrongfully. But the court may admit this evidence for another purpose, such as proving a witness’s bias or prejudice or proving agency, ownership, or control. *	
      * Evidence that a person was or was not insured against liability is not admissible to prove whether the person acted negligently or otherwise wrongfully. 
    
			   o	This may be admitted for another purpose, such as proving: Bias, Agency, Ownership, or Control.
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20
Q

Prior Sexual Conduct
FRE 412

A
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21
Q

Prior Sexual Conduct
FRE 413

A
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22
Q

Prior Sexual Conduct
FRE 414

EVIDENCE PERTAINING TO THE D IN CRIMINAL CHILD MOLESTATION CASES

A
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23
Q

Prior Sexual Conduct
FRE 415
EVIDENCE PERTAINING TO THE ∆ IN CIVIL CHILD MOLESTATION OR SEXUAL ASSAULT CASES

A
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24
Q

Probative

A
  • Evidence that tends to prove a fact in dispute.
  • Tending to prove a particular proposition or to persuade as to the truth of an allegation
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25
Q

FRE 401: Relevance

A
26
Q

How the FRE 401 defines relevant evidence

A
  • Rule 401 defines relevant evidence as having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence. The other word, relevance refoers to the logical relationship between the proposition. Rule 401 definition of relevance demonstrastes the basic philsophy of the federal rules in favor of admitting evidence and allowing the fact finder to dertermine the weight to be given the evidence.
27
Q

FRE 401 Logical Relevance: An Easy to meet standard

A
  • Relevance is a core concept of evidence. It is the first of many question on asks about a piece of evidence to determine its admissibilty. FRE 401, which addresses logical relevance, defines relevant evidence as evidence that has any tendency to make a material fact (a “fact of consequence”) more or less likely. Thus, Rule 401 is a very loose porous standard- lots of evidence ill be deemed relevant, and only in a few areas will there be a serious dfebate as to the logical relevance of the evidence that a party wishes to introduce.
  • The common law divded logical relevance into two distinct categories:
    1. Materiality, which is to say whether the evidence logically relates to a point in the case. Evidence is immaterial when it is offwered to provew a fact that is not in issue; and
    2. Relevance, which is to say whether the logical inferences actually make sense Evidence is irrlevant if it cannot logically establissh the fact the proponent asserts it will prove.
  • FRE 401 does not distingguiish between materiality and relevance and instead combines them into one rule.
28
Q

Probative value

A
  • Probative value is the probability of evidence to reach its proof purpose of a relevant fact in issue. It is one of the main elements of admitting evidence, as the admitted evidence must be relevant, tending to make the fact in issue more likely or less likely to happen, no matter how slight its probability is. However, there are exceptions to admitting relevant evidence. If the probative value of evidence is substantially outweighed by the dangers of “unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence” then this evidence might be excluded. See F.R.E. Rule 403.
29
Q

When is Relevant Evidence Inadmissible

A

FRE 402: provides that all relevant evidence is admissible unless some other provision- that is, a constitutioanl provision, statue or rule excludes the evidence. Consequently , FRE 402 creates a large pile of relevant evidence that is deemed admissble unless it is excluded some other way most typicallyu by some other evidence rule. When analyzing an evidence problem one must decide whether relevant evidence is somehow otherwise inadmissible. Becasue of this design, most evidence rules of exclusion.

30
Q

FRE 403: The Most Important Evidence Rule

A
  • Where Rule 401 is concerned with logical relevance FRE 403 governs practical relevance. It would be overwhelming, unffair and impractical to admit all logically rlevant evidence. Therefore, Rule 403 further limits the amount of admissbale evidence by screeningh evidence for practical relevance. Even if evidence passes the admissign happy relevance test of Rule 401, the troal court may nevertheless exclude evidence that is unfairly prejudical, confusing distracting or simply not worth the bother. A illustrated below, rule 403 excludes reelevant evidence only if the probative value of the evidence is substanially outweighted by the danfgers of unfair prejudice confusion of issues distraction or waste of time. Althought many Federal Rules of Evidence exclude specific types of evidence, Rule 403, which applies to both civil and crimial cases is a more general and pervasive rule. Its balancing test allows an attorney to argue that the court should exerise. its discretion to exclude otherwise admissible evidence. This the scope of Rule 403 is much broader than the other rules: it may be applied to any piece of evidence.
31
Q

FRE 403: Understanding the Rule 403 Dangers.

A

The primary aim of FRE 403 is to minimize jurors consideration of marginally relevant but emotitonally powerful facts. Rule 403 grants the trial judge wide discretion to exclude evidnece on grounds th at it will prejudice, confuse or milead the jury. The trial judge operates with tremendous discretion becasue any ruling under FRE 403 must be contextualized within the other evidence of the case, and the trial judge is in the best positoin to make that decision. However, trial judges should not use FRE 403 to excclude based on their personal assessments of persuasiveness or witnesses credibilty.

32
Q

What are the Four Rule 403 “dangers” can render otherwise relevant evidence inadmissible.

A
  1. “Unfair prejudice” means an appeal, often an emotional one, that invites the fact finder to dislike a party, punish somone for an action not at issue in the case, or decide on a basis prohibited by another rule.
  2. “Confusion” means that the evidence, while logicially relevant, may casuse the jury to misunderstand key issue or facts in the case.
  3. **“Distraction” **means that the evidence, while logically relevant, may misdirect the finder of fact, shifting the focus to an immaterial issue or a prohibited line of reasoning: and
  4. **“Waste of time” **refers to tangential matters and cumulative evidence that ass nothing new and use up precious court time resources.
33
Q

FRE 105: Limiting Instructions

A
  • if an out-of court statment is admissible for one purpose but not for another, under FRE 105 the objecting party is entitled to a limiting instrction telling the jury the propoer purpose and the forbidden purpose
  • If the danger that the jury will misuse the statmenty subtantially outweighs the probative value of the stament when ised for its limited purpose, then the trial judge may exclude the statment altogether under FRE 403.
  • Sometimes an out of court stament can be redacted to remocve inadmissible portions or to aviod the danger that the jury will use the stament for an impermissble purpose. for exampole the patient’s account of who was at fault in an automoble accidnet can be remove d from a hospital, medical recorxds, or reference to the gult of a co-defendant might be removed from a confession The remaining portion of the stament would be admissable.
34
Q

Relevance Checklist

A
35
Q

FRE 901(a): General Principle of Authentication

A
  • A party must authenticate any tangible thing offered as evidence. Whether it is a documnet, a recording, a gun, a baggie full of cocaine, or a work of art, it must first be authenticated. Both real evidence (items that were actually involved in the events that gave rise to the litigation) and Demonstrative evidence (tems such as a gun that resembles the gun used in the crime, a map of the accident location, or chart) must be authenticated.
  • As FRE 901(a) indicates, the authentication question is simple: Is the item what its proponent claims it is?
36
Q

FRE 901(a): When your authenticating an item its a two step process which is?

A
  1. The judge decides whether a reasonable jury could find the item to be what the proponent claims it to be and if so,
  2. The jury, as it deliberates, decides whether the evidence is sufficient to determine that the item is, in fact, authentic.
37
Q

FRE 901: Authentication steps

A
  • Must show that the evidence is competent.
  • Authentication steps
    * Mark for indentification
    * Lay the foundation
    * offerthe exhibit into evidence
    * Secure an expressed ruling on the evidnece -> Admitted or Not Admitted into evidence.
38
Q

FRE 901: Authenticating a Writing

A
  • Handwriting expert; compare with some piece known to be written by ∆
  • Ask family member witness if it is written by the ∆
  • Phrases, statements, words (content of the note) used that indicates who wrote it
  • May have the contested note and samples of the ∆’s handwriting and ask the jury to make a comparison (i.e., “May consider it on condition you find that the note is written by the D”)
39
Q

FRE 901: Authenticating a photograph or video

A
  • Do not need to call in expert; Can lay foundation with a witness
    o Do you recognize this photograph?
    o Can you say this properly and accurately represents ……………….?
    o As long as the witness can say that the photo/video is a fair and accurate representation, then we can introduce it into evidence
  • Can introduce series of photographs leading to specific room that the murder happened
40
Q

FRE 901: Authenticating a diagram

A
  • Witness can lay foundation; As long as they can say that diagram is a fair and accurate representation, then we can introduce it into evidence
41
Q

FRE 901: Authenticating a Recording

A
  • Expert in voice analysis
  • Self-authenticating statements in the recording
  • Ask witness: can you ID the voices on this recording?
    o How? I spoke to these people many times
42
Q

FRE 902: Self-Authentication

A

Some items are self-authenticating FRE 902 lists items that will be admitted into evidence withour any outside evidence of jauthenticity. Examples include the following:

  • Various official., public, or acknoledge documents, certified or with signature and seal:
  • Newspapers:
  • Trade inscriptions:
  • Commerical paper; and
  • Ceritificated busnuess records.
43
Q

Authentication Checklist.

A
  1. Is the evidence in question a tangible items such as a document, recordign, weapon
44
Q

Propensity

A

Character evidence is generally not admissible to show “propensity” – that is, for the purpose of showing that the person likely acted in a way that is consistent with that character trait on a particular occasion.

45
Q

FRE 404:

A
46
Q

The Best Evidence Rule

A
  • Instead of having a witness, talk about a piece of evidence, introduce the actual item
  • Note: Witnesses are not allowed to tesifty to the contents of a writing -> introduce the writing!!!
47
Q

Four ways to authrnticate a writing:

A

o Expert  must have relevant skills (i.e., handwriting expert)
o Someone familiar w/ the person handwriting (i.e., a spouse, employee, parent)
o The jury could compare writing samples
o Self-authentication by the contents of the note  The note is so specific to the individual and it has so specific facts that it couldn’t have been written by anyone else

48
Q

FRE 901: Authenticating or Identifying Evidence

A
49
Q

FRE 404: Character Evidence Crimes or Other Acts

Question: [True or False] Can Character Evidence be admissible to show propensity?

A
50
Q

Character evidence is not admissible UNLESS V.I.D.E.O.S

A
51
Q

FRE 405: Methods of proving Character

FRE405(a)

A

FRE 405(a): By Reputation or Opinion:

When evidence of a person’s character or character trait is admissible, it may be proved by testimony about the person’s reputation or by testimony in the form of an opinion. On cross-examination of the character witness, the court may allow an inquiry into relevant specific instances of the person’s conduct.
Character evidence may only be admitted in the form of reputation or opinion on direct examination and specific instances on cross-examination.

         **Foundation for reputation: Must show that the witness knows the D’s reputation (they are part of the community D belongs to and they know someone who directly knows D) Foundation for reputation: Must show that the witness knows the D’s reputation (they are part of the community D belongs to and they know someone who directly knows D)
52
Q

FRE 405: Methods of proving Character

FRE405(b)

A

FRE 405(b): By Specific Instances of Conduct. When a perons’s character or character trait is an essential element of a charge, claim or defense, the character or trait may also be proved by relevant specific instances of the perosn’s conduct. Specific instancves may only be used when the character is an essential element of the charge, claim, or defense.

53
Q

Prove character in 3 Ways (FRE 405)

A
  • PRIOR ACTS/SPECIFIC INCIDENT
    —->when a person’s character trait is an essential element of a chartge, claim, or defense, the characrter trait may be proved by RELEVANT specific instances of the person’s conduct.
  • REPUTATION—–> Testimony of person who knows reputation (community member)
                               -Establish perosn is capable of giving reputation
                           - Someone who's been a part of the community for a while.
  • Opinion ——> Individual Witness
                            -Whenever character is provable under 404(a) and 405(a)
54
Q

Proper Purposes for Admissibilty of Prior Bad Acts (Civil or Criminal) [FRE 404(b)(2)

                   K.I.P.P.O.M.I.A
A
55
Q

FRE 104(a): Preliminary Questions

A
  • Court decides any preliminary questions about whether a witness is qualified, if there is a privilege, or if evidence is admissible. Goes to proper purpose & foundation.
56
Q

FRE 104(b): Relevance that depends on a fact

A
  • If evidence depends on whether a fact exists, proof must be introduced suffcient to support a finding that the fact does exist.
57
Q

Habit (406) Habit, Routine, Practice.

A
58
Q

Remember Last Step in the analysis= Must pass 403

A

The court may exclude relevant evidence if its** probative value** is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumlative evidence.

59
Q

Habit examples: FRE 406.

A
60
Q

FRE 407: Subsequent Remedial measure

A
61
Q

FRE 106: Remainder of or Related of Recorded Stamtents (Rule of Comleteness)

A

Evidence (Pace Law School) Part 1 (8 decks)

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