Questions tagged [rules-of-evidence]
Rules that apply to the admission of evidence in a trial.
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Can punishments be weakened if evidence was collected illegally?
Suppose police are investigating a burglary case. Under law, COVID-19 contact tracing data can only be used for contact tracing and nothing else. However a team decides to analyze the data anyway to ...
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In a criminal trial, is the prosecution allowed to discuss its plea bargaining with the defendant?
Suppose that someone is charged with a crime. Before they are arraigned, they negotiate with the prosecution about a potential plea bargain, but do not reach one and instead go to trial.
During the ...
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What would you be charged with for covering up a rightful death?
I'm referring to a specific situation that occurred in the TV show 24.
Due to previous complex circumstances, a man (call him "Bob") destroys a van that is the scene of a murder and hides 2 ...
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Attorney Client Privilege: Disclosure within Evidence
Florida Statues Provides
A person who has a privilege against the disclosure of a confidential
matter or communication waives the privilege if the person, or the
person's predecessor while holder of ...
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Can a rape victim's DNA be used against them in criminal proceedings?
This question arose after a recent revelation from the San Francisco DA, who said that DNA of rape victims that were gathered when performing a rape kit test1 was used to identify a criminal suspect ...
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Can evidence that 100% proves guilt (but was obtained 100% illegally) sway a jury to convict? [closed]
Raymond the Rapist raped Dan the Dad's child. Dan takes Raymond to court, but there's 0 evidence, and it's basically a he-said-she-said deal, and there's nothing Dan can do to convict Raymond. So Dan, ...
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Can messenger chat be used as evidence in courts?
My roommate agreed that I don't need to pay rent for the days I am not in apartment. I have to go to Texas for a 6 month period. I informed my roommate before adding him as roommate. We had this ...
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Perverting the Course of Justice - Does deception fit this crime? [closed]
My question: Does Perverting the Course of Justice 'apply' to those who try and garner 'evidence' using somewhat deceptive means, even if the evidence they intend to gain is accurate and lawful?
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Questions regarding lack of evidence/reasoning for initial interaction with law enforcement and how that affects any infraction discovered thereafter [closed]
State: UT
County: Salt Lake County
People:
Man#1=Protagonist
Woman#1=WitnessOne (Life Partner)
Woman#2=WitnessTwo (Friend)
Woman#3=Antagonist (Fellow employee)
Employer=HotelChain
Events:
During a ...
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How did Dominion legally obtain text messages from Fox News hosts?
In the current case of Dominion v Fox News, we saw that text messages from Fox News hosts have been admitted as legal evidence in court.
My understanding was that text messages either had to be turned ...
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Is evidence gathered under the aegis of a fake/incomplete/otherwise falsified warrant admissible in court? [duplicate]
If a police officer bangs on my front door, as his partners is loudly declaring he possesses "a warrant to search the premises!" when, in actuality, he's waving about his cruiser's ...
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If the Jury considers evidence that should be discarded in the US, what would the result be?
This comes from the movie A Guilty Conscience, which may be one of the best movies of the past 20 years in Hong Kong and its box office is the highest ever.
Movie Spoiler Warning
What if the defendant'...
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In-court identification of defendants
(Inspired by Can a lawyer subject the court to a (temporary) ruse for a legitimate purpose?)
Under which circumstances are witnesses asked to identify people present (in particular defendants) in the ...
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Does the exclusionary rule attach to the illegality of the search or to the person whose rights were violated?
Police blatantly illegally searches Bob's house and finds very strong evidence that Bob and Rob independently committed a horrific crime each. A variation: the crime is the same and Bob and Rob ...
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Why didn't the Crown inform the witness about the defense's evidence beforehand?
In 2016 ONCJ 155, the judge says with regards to a witness:
[72] In an effort to explain to the Court her continued socializing with Mr. Ghomeshi following the alleged choking incident and over the ...
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In what states of the U.S., and under what conditions can a priest be compelled to testify of information a penitent disclosed to them?
If the states where it is privileged, and may not be admissible in court are fewer, which states are they?
Does it matter if information disclosed during priest-penitent communications had been known ...
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How do you prove a fact at issue in litigation?
Many questions on this site ask some variant of the question: "how does one prove something in court?" Paraphrasing a few:
How do you prove that someone forged your signature?
How do you ...
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Can CCTV cameras share an IT network in the UK?
I've just had a conversation with a company who are a "Security Systems and Alarms Inspection Board accredited intruder alarm system installer", who told me that their CCTV cameras and ...
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How can I prove that I owned an object before a certain date?
I received a widget on January 1.
A law is passed criminalizing ownership of widgets.
It is an affirmative defense that the widget owner had it before January 10th.
How can I prove that I owned the ...
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Can an audio recording prove a defendant's innocence?
Defendant is in jail for a gun charge. The gun is not his, nor did he know it was in the vehicle.
Defendant's girlfriend has an audio recording of the gun's owner admitting to owning the gun but ...
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Dealing with expert opinions
Every Economist who is consistent with their discipline subscribes to
the subjective theory of value; how does a Judge who wants to be
consistent with Economics and coincidentally also is a B.A in
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Legal/jurisprudential term to refer to any evidence that can be interpreted either way
Some time back, I had read a specific phrase used to refer to situations where some "evidence" can be interpreted either way.
For example:
Person A dies in a hospital and a syringe is found ...
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Self-incriminating statements carry weight of proof
If someone is recorded confessing to a crime, can the recording serve as evidence solely because it contains the self-incriminating statement? Putting as an example:
Carlos had his wallet stolen.
In a ...
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Would proof of the convict being blackmailed into confession be enough to exonerate them in certain cases?
Imagine a convict who was blackmailed into confessing to a crime (this blackmail happens prior to the crime). Not only that, they were also blackmailed into doing certain incriminating actions, such ...
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Can a U.S. phone call recorded in a 1-party state be used as evidence in a case tried in a state that is 2-party?
Hypothetically, let's say someone is involved in a case that was originally filed in a NJ state court. The case was moved to a NJ federal court, and then transferred to a FLA federal court (after a ...
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How do I print or present emails to support my defense in an unlawful detainer?
When presenting digital evidence in small-claims court, what is the correct way to do so?
For example, if I have voluminous quantities of e-mails, digital ledgers, and other digital documents along ...
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Motion to strike a dismissed PO
How can a plaintiff avoid being faced with unfair prejudice after a defendant does a motion to strike all evidence from a dismissed PO? Since without the evidence the plaintiff can't defend their ...
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Is an officer's testimony in a military court considered coerced and thus inadmissible in criminal court proceedings?
I was watching a Law and Order SVU episode which involves two court proceedings.
The first is an article 32 hearing which is introduced in the episode as the military equivalent of grand jury. ...
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When is evidence deemed adduced in bench (judge-alone) criminal trials?
Background
This question is answered easily for jury trials: something is put in evidence ("adduced") when the jury hears / sees it and there is no direction from the judge to disregard it. ...
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Is the U.S. Dep't of State yearly Report on Human Rights Practices deemed part of the record by the operation of law or you must cite it?
The reports are lengthy, ranging between ca. 20-70 pages for a particular country, and the greatest use of it is to draw an inference from the admissive assertion relative generally to torture and ...
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Why what you say to the police can be used against you, but not in your favour?
I'm asking this question from the viewpoint of an almost complete newbie in court law.
I've heard stated by plenty of lawyers that you should never talk to the police, and the only thing you should ...
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Can a municipality ignore the rules of evidence for charges relating to violation of a municipal ordinance?
My Township has an ordinance relating to grass needing to be cut on a regular basis. The penalties for violating include fines up to $1,000 and jailtime. Presumably the latter is not used on the ...
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What are the constraints on a civil suit (witnesses, evidence, topics) - and are they public
I am currently watching the Depp/Heard trial, and there seems to be a lot of stuff that cannot be shown, or said, and a lot of people i would expect to make a statement are absent.
My guess is that ...
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Watching the series Anatomy of a Scandal; would a rape case on such minimal evidence make it to court in real life?
In the Netflix series, Anatomy of a Scandal, the protagonist James Whitehouse is being tried on a charge of rape by a former colleague and affair partner who says that Whitehouse raped her during a ...
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What happens if there are multiple suspects but not enough evidence to convict any of them?
For example, suppose there are two houses side-by-side. One day someone throws an incendiary device from one house to the other, causing a fire. The facts of the case are:
There are four people in ...
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US exclusionary rule - are there limits?
Inspired by this question related to admissibility of evidence obtained from an unlawful search and seizure: At an unlawful traffic stop, police searches the car and find the weapon used in a recent ...
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Why did US law go with inadmissibility, and not reactionary punitive action, to prevent illegal evidence collection?
As I've understood it, the exclusionary rule is a prophylactic rule aimed to prevent the cultivation of illegal evidence collection by removing the utility of illegally-collected evidence through ...
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What happens if someone provides evidence in court without the knowledge of the judge?
It is my understanding that the judge must accept (almost?) all evidence admitted into court. So, this leaves me with three questions:
What happens if an official shows evidence that the judge hadn't ...
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Consequences of introducing inadmissible evidence to the judge and jury
Evidence may be inadmissible, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be ineffectual in its influence of the jury, and the judge. For example, evidence proving a horrendous crime done by the accused,...
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Is it allowed to non-consensually submit someone's diary as evidence?
In episode 12, season 4 of The Office, called "The Deposition", the diary of a witness (Michael Scott) is used as evidence, without the witness's consent. The diary was taken by the suer, ...
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Is it true that you shouldn't publish evidence that you intend to use in court?
I've heard in a few places that you shouldn't make public pieces of evidence that you plan to use later to support a case against some person/entity.
But I'd like to ask if this is actually true and ...
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Obtaining information that requires a court order but before to going to the court?
I'm struggling with the following dilemma.
Some information is not accessible without a court order, for example, some data stored in Apple / Google / Facebook servers.
Going to the court directly is ...
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Is propensity evidence ever allowed as circumstantial evidence?
I, being a non-expert in any country's/state's law, was somewhat surprised when it was said that propensity evidence isn't, in Wisconsin, legal evidence; see between 5.57 - 8.15 in this video about ...
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If a cop is mistaken in his belief that X is true, where X would typically be grounds for reasonable suspicion, does he have reasonable suspicion?
If a cop is factually mistaken (but sincerely mistaken, not a liar) in his belief that X is true, and if X would typically constitute grounds for reasonable suspicion (were it to be true, which it isn’...
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Was the withholding of high-quality drone footage a Brady violation?
In the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the defence filed a motion for a mistrial during jury deliberations. One of the grounds for a mistrial, they argued, was that a low-resolution recording of the drone ...
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Does partiality discredit witnesses?
In criminal trials, when a regular (non-expert) witness does not like the defendant (and admits it when asked), does that alone give a valid reason to discredit them to any extent at all?
Can the jury ...
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Can you de-identify a lawfully recorded audio-only call to lodge with the court and offer into evidence?
Bob, while providing lawful notice of call recording by beep-tone warning notification, records calls with a company that does not record calls where it ordinarily conveys information that exposes it ...
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What 2012-2015 SCOTUS decisions make "letter[s] from the grave" inadmissible into evidence?
I've read this interesting bit:
In a 2008 trial where a man was accused of poisoning his wife with antifreeze, Schroeder allowed into evidence a letter the wife wrote a neighbor accusing the husband ...
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Are there any criminal jurisdictions where burden of proof rests so entirely on prosecution that defense does not need to deal with evidence?
In criminal trial processes that I'm aware of, particularly adversarial, burden of proof is nominally with the prosecution in most circumstances, but in practice it seems to be somewhat shared - both ...
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Were the district attorney and his legal advisor legally correct in Dirty Harry about the total inadmissability of evidence?
In the first Dirty Harry movie, the titular detective Harry Callahan is in pursuit of a serial killer who already murdered several victims and is holding another victim as a hostage. He figures out ...
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