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.
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:
- the purpose the character evidence is being used for
- the form in which the character evidence is offered
- the type of proceeding in which the character evidence is offered
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.
Subramaniam v. Public Prosecutor, Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, 1 W.L.R. 965 (1956), is a leading Privy Council case that defined the scope of the hearsay rule. It was a case heard on appeal from the Supreme Court of the Federation of Malaya.
Makin v Attorney General for New South Wales is a famous decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council where the modern common law rule of similar fact evidence originated.
R v Béland [1987] 2 S.C.R. 398 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision where the Court rejected the use of polygraph results as evidence in court.
R v Handy, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 908, 2002 SCC 56, is the leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on similar fact evidence. The Court proposed what is known as the Handy test for determining whether past occurrences that resemble the crime can be admitted as evidence.
In the law of evidence, similar fact evidence establishes the conditions under which factual evidence of past misconduct of the accused can be admitted at trial for the purpose of inferring that the accused committed the misconduct at issue.
Hearsay evidence, in a legal forum, is testimony from an under-oath witness who is reciting an out-of-court statement, the content of which is being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. In most courts, hearsay evidence is inadmissible unless an exception to the hearsay rule applies.
A rape shield law is a law that limits the ability to introduce evidence or cross-examine rape complainants about their past sexual behaviour. The term also refers to a law that prohibits the publication of the identity of an alleged rape victim.
R v Mohan, 1994 CanLII 80, [1994] 2 SCR 9 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the use of expert witnesses in trial testimony.
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.
R v Thomas was an Australian court case decided in the Victorian Court of Appeal on 18 August 2006. It concerned the conviction in February 2006 of Joseph Thomas on terrorism-related charges, specifically receiving funds from Al Qaeda. The appeal revolved around the admissibility of a confession Thomas made during an interrogation in Pakistan in 2003. The court found that the evidence, which was crucial to Thomas' convictions, was inadmissible because it had not been given voluntarily. The court accordingly quashed his convictions, but after further hearings ordered on 20 December 2006 that he be retried rather than acquitted.
Forensic hypnosis is the use of hypnosis in the investigative process and as evidence in court which became increasingly popular from the 1950s to the early 1980s with its use being debated into the 1990s when its popular use mostly diminished. Forensic hypnosis's uses are hindered by concerns with its reliability and accuracy. The United States Department of Justice states that hypnosis may be occasionally used in investigation, but that the method faces "serious objections" and that information from hypnosis may be considered inadmissible. Forensic Hypnosis has been considered for several uses including: hypnotic memory enhancement, evaluating a defendant's mental state, determining if a subject is telling the truth, preparing a witness for trial, determining if one is feigning trauma or a mental injury, and supporting the defense in a criminal case. Some of these uses have found more support than others as academic psychologists have reviewed these. While psychologists may find it appropriate to use memory enhancement to help in finding leads in the investigation process which should lead to uncovering more concrete evidence, its use in determining if a subject is telling the truth has been widely criticized.
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.
Moorov (Samuel) v HM Advocate (additional citation 1930 J.C. 68) is a famous case in Scots criminal law based on criminal evidence and the admissibility of similar fact evidence. The case established a precedent named the Moorov doctrine.
The role of expert witnesses in English law is to give explanations of difficult or technical topics in civil and criminal trials, to assist the fact finding process. The extent to which authorities have been allowed to testify, and on what topics, has been debated, and to this end a variety of criteria have evolved throughout English case law.
The South African law of evidence forms part of the adjectival or procedural law of that country. It is based on English common law.
Bunning v Cross [1978] HCA 22, 141 CLR 54 (HCA), is an Australian evidence law case, in which the admissibility of improperly gained evidence is examined. Like the similar R v Ireland (1970) 126 CLR 321, Bunning v Cross, the ruling of the High Court of Australia has been formulated as an exclusionary rule, namely the onus is on the accused to prove the misconduct and justify exclusion, and is known as the Bunning discretion.
The Public Prosecution Service v William Elliott and Robert McKee [2013] UKSC 32 is a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom concerning admissibility of electronic evidence obtained from an electronic fingerprint reader unit that had not been approved by the Secretary of State as required by Article 61(8)(b) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Order 1989.
