Evidence Outline

 EVIDENCE
Limited Admissibility: Rule 105
“When evidence which is admissible as to one party or for one purpose but not admissible as to another party or for another purpose is admitted, the court, upon request, shall restrict the evidence to its proper scope and instruct the jury accordingly.”
o         The judge is required, under this rule, to give a limited instruction. This instruction will be given to the jury and will tell them that it is only admissible for a certain purpose, and not for another purpose.
o         The FRE does NOT state exactly at what time this limited instruction should be given
èThe courts interpreted it as that the courts have a choice as to when they want to give it:
1.       They could give it at the time the evidence is introduced (makes the most sense) OR
2.       They could delay the instruction until it is time the judge lectures the jury on the instructions of the law.
o         If the opposing counsel REQUESTS the limiting instruction, then the judge must give this instruction to the jury.
o         If counsel does not request this instruction, the judge still may give the limiting instruction if he chooses to, but he is not required to do so.
                     è The Supreme Court held that Juries are presumed to follow the judge’s instructions
 
I. RELEVANCE
Rule 401 – Definition of “relevant evidence”
o    “Relevant Evidence” means evidence 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.
o    There must be a logical relationship
o    Doesn’t have to be a disputed fact of consequence.
o    What is meant by “fact of consequence?” – There are 3 types:
q If you look to the substantive law, it will tell you what most of the facts of consequence are. They mainly come from substantive law.
q Witness Testimony: Any time a witness gets on the stand and testifies, his credibility automatically becomes an issue in the case. This is a fact of consequence and maybe shown that his story is not worth believing.
q Background evidence may be fact of consequence. Controversies between parties that arise during trial arise in a context. It makes sense to allow the parties to develop the case and introduce evidence so that the jurors can truly understand the controversy between the parties. This is relevant because it is background information. [This could be easily abused by the attorneys or the trial judge].
o    The statement “any tendency to make the existence of any fact” is a fairly lenient statement. It is understood that as long as it may help in some small way to the fact of consequence, then the trial judge will allow the evidence to be admissible.
o    To be relevant, it does NOT have to prove the fact. It must have only some tendency to make the case more probable.
 
Rule 402 – “All relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the Constitution of the United States, by Act of Congress, by these rules, or by other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority. Evidence which is not relevant is not admissible.”
–          Evidence that is not relevant is not admissible
–          One of the exclusionary rules
–          If the evidence is relevant, it may or may not be admissible. Just because it is relevant doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be admissible
–          The 4th Amendment is an exclusionary rule which falls under Rule 402
Steps to determine relevancy:
What are the claims and defenses that the parties have raised?
What is the substantive law? Determines the elements of the claim and the facts of consequence.
Is there a logical relationship between the evidence sought to be introduced and the issues to be resolved? This logical relationship can be very loose—any tendency. 
 
Rule 403 – “Relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” (These are called countervailing factors)
à Although the evidence may meet the definition under Rule 401, the judge can still exclude the evidence under Rule 403.
 
State v Kotsimpulos
Facts: Kotsimpulos, a federal meat inspector, was accused of stealing 5 kosher pork tenders from Hannaford Brothers meat plant à defense tried to introduce testimony by K that a Hannaford supervisor named Carver had told K that he would see to it that K would lose his job à The purpose of offering this evidence was to suggest the possibility that the pork loins were planted in K’s car 
substantive law would be concerned with whether it was planted – no sufficient logical relationship between evidence and fact à too remote
 
How should the trial judge decide if the evidence is relevant?
1.       First, go to the FRE 401 and see if it makes the issue more or less probable
2.       Look to the substantive law
3.       Was there a sufficient logical relationship between the excluded evidence (boss’s threat of firing him) and the underlying substantive issue in this case? The trial court said NO CONNECTION and the Appellate judge agreed
4.       You must look at the fact of consequence AND if there is a logical relationship – there must be both in order for the evidence to be relevant to the case.
The court said that the evidence is not relevant by itself, but may have been relevant if some other information was introduced.
o         Evidence BY ITSELF might not meet the definition of relevance, but evidence IN CONJUNCTION with other evidence may meet the definition under FRE 401.
o         The analysis should be contextual, and should be made in the context of the other evidence introduced in the case.
 
Sufficient Evidence = evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to find the facts.
Conditional Relevance = (“or relevance conditioned on a fact”; “relevance is admissible subject to connection”) – FRE 104(b) à The relevance of a piece of evidence is conditioned (dependant) on another relevant fact in order to determine its relevance.
Probative Value = strength of the evidence
 
United States v Johnson
Facts: Johnson was charged with making and subscribing false and fraudulent income tax returns for 2 corporations AND also charged with tax evasion relating to his individual income tax returns, but those charges were dropped à the dismissal prevented him from introducing evidence to establish that, during the period of time in question, he actually overpaid his taxes by neglecting to make permissible deductions
Holding: Evidence not admissible because it didn’t relate to the charge à not a fact of consequence because substantive law of existing charge is only concerned with whether he made false statements – it would cause unfair prejudice to government if evidence of overpayment was introduced because jury might sympathize with him
Ø Whether or not the D overpaid his taxes is not a matter of substantive law. They find that D’s defense was not a fact of consequence in this case and the law doesn’t care about it
Ø If that evidence was introduced, then that would cause unfair prejudice to the government
Ø Usually, in criminal cases, the courts are concerned with Defendants being convicted for the wrong reasons.
è This is an unusual case because they are showing concern for the government
 
**Rule 403à Applies to almost every piece of evidence – even if evidence is relevant, trial judge can still exclude evidence if probative value is substantially outweighed by … **
 
U.S. v McRae
Facts: McRae killed his wife by shooting her through the head with a rifle at point blank range.  He admitted this but said it was an accident
Ø 2 Issues:
1) D argues that the evidence of various photographs should have been inadmissible under Rule 403
o         D ARG – the admittance of the photographs is highly prejudicial and significantly outweighs the probative value of the evidence.
o         The court found that the photographs clearly meet the definition of relevance. Under Rule 403, the probative value was NOT substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice
o         Probative Value = The strength of the evidence; How probable is it that this piece of evidence will prove/disprove fact of consequence
à To determine this, the judge can look to other evidence
à Probative Value is contextual (like relevance)
à The judge should look to see whether the probative value is SUBSTANTIALLY outweighed by one or more of the factors laid out in Rule 403
2) Evidence about D’s relations with other women à D is arguing that the probative value is substantially outweighed by its danger
à In this case, the defendant had actually introduced evidence that made the issue easy for the court. He said he was a devoted, caring and loving husband – and said that he was in grief and depressed after she died
 
Opening the Door – By D introducing this evidence, he “opened the door” to allow the prosecutor to rebut his testimony and show that he is not in mourning and not a devoted hu