Evidence |
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Part of the law series |
Types of evidence |
Relevance |
Authentication |
Witnesses |
Hearsay and exceptions |
Other common law areas |
The business records exception to the U.S. hearsay rule is based on Rule 803(6) of the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE). It is sometimes referred to as the business entry rule.
The basic rationale for the exception is that employees are under a duty to be accurate in observing, reporting, and recording business facts. The underlying belief is that special reliability is provided by the regularity with which the records are made and kept, as well as the incentive of employees to keep accurate records (under threat of termination or other penalty). The exception functions to allow the record to substitute for the in-court testimony of the employees, but it can only substitute for what the employee could testify about. The availability of the declarant (the employee whose testimony is being replaced by the record) is immaterial for the purposes of this exception.
It must be apparent to the judge that the record was made in the regular course of business, i.e., that it was customary practice to make such an entry and that the entrant had a duty to record it (either by law or by the terms of his employment). The record must have been made at or near the time of the act, event, or transaction at issue. Furthermore, the record must consist of matters either within the personal knowledge of the entrant or within the personal knowledge of someone with a duty to transmit the information to the entrant.
This last point was contested in the case of Johnson v. Lutz, 253 N.Y. 124, 170 N.E. 517 (1930), which held that a business record is admissible only when it is made by an employee about information, obtained by him, from an informant who himself was under a business duty to impart that information. Johnson dealt specifically with the admissibility of police reports, and set a limitation on the use of such reports in court. Even though the police officer was under a duty to properly record the statements of an informant, the informant himself was under no duty to report the events correctly, and therefore the informant's statement was still inadmissible hearsay.
In the case of Palmer v. Hoffman , 318 U.S. 109 (1943), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that an accident report created by a railroad company which was prepared in anticipation of a lawsuit by the victim was inadmissible, because it was not prepared in the regular course of business. Railroad travel, and not litigation, was the primary business of the railroad, and therefore the report was not considered sufficiently reliable to be admitted into evidence.
FRE 803(7) states the negative counterpart of the business records exception: the use of the lack of a record to prove that a transaction or occurrence had not taken place, if it was the regular practice of the business to record such events if they had actually occurred. [1]
Under FRE 803(17), market reports and quotations, directories, and other published compilations are considered generally admissible if they are generally used and relied upon by the public or by persons in particular occupations. Such information is considered admissible separate and apart from privately made business records described above.
An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as an expert. The judge may consider the witness's specialized opinion about evidence or about facts before the court within the expert's area of expertise, to be referred to as an "expert opinion". Expert witnesses may also deliver "expert evidence" within the area of their expertise. Their testimony may be rebutted by testimony from other experts or by other evidence or facts.
Hearsay is testimony from a witness under oath who is reciting an out-of-court statement that is being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
First adopted in 1975, the Federal Rules of Evidence codify the evidence law that applies in United States federal courts. In addition, many states in the United States have either adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence, with or without local variations, or have revised their own evidence rules or codes to at least partially follow the federal rules.
Character evidence is a term used in the law of evidence to describe any testimony or document submitted for the purpose of proving that a person acted in a particular way on a particular occasion based on the character or disposition of that person. In the United States, Federal Rule of Evidence 404 maps out its permissible and prohibited uses in trials. Three factors typically determine the admissibility of character evidence:
In the law of evidence in the United States, public policy doctrines for the exclusion of relevant evidence encompass several types of evidence that would be relevant to prove facts at issue in a legal proceeding, but which are nonetheless excluded because of public policy concerns. There are five major areas of exclusion that arise out of the Federal Rules of Evidence ("FRE"): subsequent remedial measures, ownership of liability insurance, offers to plead guilty to a crime, offers to settle a claim, and offers to pay medical expenses. Many states have modified versions of the FRE under their own state evidence codes which widen or narrow the public policy exclusions in state courts.
The law of evidence, also known as the rules of evidence, encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence must or must not be considered by the trier of fact in reaching its decision. The trier of fact is a judge in bench trials, or the jury in any cases involving a jury. The law of evidence is also concerned with the quantum (amount), quality, and type of proof needed to prevail in litigation. The rules vary depending upon whether the venue is a criminal court, civil court, or family court, and they vary by jurisdiction.
A learned treatise, in the law of evidence, is a text that is sufficiently authoritative in its field to be admissible as evidence in a court in support of the contentions made therein.
A present sense impression, in the law of evidence, is a statement made by a person that conveys his or her sense of the state of an event or the condition of something. The statement must be spontaneously made while the person was perceiving the event or condition, or "immediately thereafter." The permissible time lapse between event and statement may range from seconds to minutes, but probably not hours. The subject matter and content of the statement are limited to descriptions or explanations of the event or condition, therefore opinions, inferences, or conclusions about the event or condition are not present sense impressions. An example of present sense impression is of a person saying, "it's cold" or "we're going really fast".
The party admission, in the law of evidence, is a type of statement that appears to be hearsay but is generally exempted (excluded) from the definition of hearsay because it was made by a party to the litigation adverse to the party introducing it into evidence.
Admissible evidence, in a court of law, is any testimonial, documentary, or tangible evidence that may be introduced to a factfinder—usually a judge or jury—to establish or to bolster a point put forth by a party to the proceeding. For evidence to be admissible, it must be relevant and "not excluded by the rules of evidence", which generally means that it must not be unfairly prejudicial, and it must have some indicia of reliability. The general rule in evidence is that all relevant evidence is admissible and all irrelevant evidence is inadmissible, though some countries proscribe the prosecution from exploiting evidence obtained in violation of constitutional law, thereby rendering relevant evidence inadmissible. This rule of evidence is called the exclusionary rule. In the United States, this was effectuated federally in 1914 under the Supreme Court case Weeks v. United States and incorporated against the states in 1961 in the case Mapp v. Ohio. Both of these cases involved law enforcement conducting warrantless searches of the petitioners' homes, with incriminating evidence being described inside them.
Witness impeachment, in the law of evidence of the United States, is the process of calling into question the credibility of an individual testifying in a trial. The Federal Rules of Evidence contain the rules governing impeachment in US federal courts.
Hearsay, in a legal forum, is an out-of-court statement which is being offered in court for the truth of what was asserted. In most courts, hearsay evidence is inadmissible unless an exception to the hearsay rule applies.
The hearsay provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 reformed the common law relating to the admissibility of hearsay evidence in criminal proceedings begun on or after 4 April 2005.
In the law of evidence, a dying declaration is testimony that would normally be barred as hearsay but may in common law nonetheless be admitted as evidence in criminal law trials because it constituted the last words of a dying person. The rationale is that someone who is dying or believes death to be imminent would have less incentive to fabricate testimony, and as such, the hearsay statement carries with it some reliability.
In United States law, a declarationagainst interest is an exception to the rule on hearsay in which a person's statement may be used, where generally the content of the statement is so prejudicial to the person making it that they would not have made the statement unless they believed the statement was true. For example, if a driver in an automobile accident boasts publicly that they were speeding, it may represent a legal admission of liability. The Federal Rules of evidence limit the bases of prejudices to the declarant to tort and criminal liability. Some states, such as California, extend the prejudice to "hatred, ridicule, or social disgrace in the community." It is analogous to the criminal equivalent, the statement against penal interest which is a statement that puts the person making the statement at risk of prosecution. In the United States federal court system and many state courts, statements against interest by individuals who are not available to be called at trial may be admitted as evidence where in other circumstances they would be excluded as hearsay.
Prior consistent statements and prior inconsistent statements, in the law of evidence, occur where a witness, testifying at trial, makes a statement that is either consistent or inconsistent, respectively, with a previous statement given at an earlier time such as during a discovery, interview, or interrogation. The examiner can impeach the witness when an inconsistent statement is found, and may conversely bolster the credibility of an impeached witness with a prior consistent statement.
Relevance, in the common law of evidence, is the tendency of a given item of evidence to prove or disprove one of the legal elements of the case, or to have probative value to make one of the elements of the case likelier or not. Probative is a term used in law to signify "tending to prove". Probative evidence "seeks the truth". Generally in law, evidence that is not probative is inadmissible and the rules of evidence permit it to be excluded from a proceeding or stricken from the record "if objected to by opposing counsel". A balancing test may come into the picture if the value of the evidence needs to be weighed versus its prejudicial nature.
Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305 (2009), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that it was a violation of the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation for a prosecutor to submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the person who performed the test. While the court ruled that the then-common practice of submitting these reports without testimony was unconstitutional, it also held that so called "notice-and-demand" statutes are constitutional. A state would not violate the Constitution through a "notice-and-demand" statute by both putting the defendant on notice that the prosecution would submit a chemical drug test report without the testimony of the scientist and also giving the defendant sufficient time to raise an objection.
Lorraine v. Markel American Insurance Company, 241 F.R.D. 534, is a case in which a landmark decision about the admissibility and authentication of digital evidence was set down in the form of a 100-page opinion by Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm.