Evidence Outline

Evidence Outline
 
I.       Introduction to the Rules of Evidence
A.     Evidence Rules Prior to 1975
1.    Common Law Origins
a.     Prior to the codification of the federal evidence rules in 1975, evidence rules were based on the common law developed from cases.
2.    Influential Professionals in Evidence
a.     Dean Wigmore
i.       Wigmore was the dean of Northwestern Law School from 1904-1940 and wrote very detailed treatises on the common law of evidence rules.
b.     Dean McCormack
i.       McCormack was the former dean of Texas Law and wrote influential evidence treatises.
3.    Rules Enabling Act of 1934
a.     The Rules Enabling Act delegated power to the courts to determine their own rules of procedure, but the procedural rules could not expand or alter substantive rights.
i.       Once the rules were written they had to go to Congress and if Congress did not interfere with them in six months, the rules became law and superseded conflicting laws.
4.    Attempts to Codify the Rules of Evidence
a.     The American Law Institute decided it was best to create rules rather than write a restatement
i.       1942: The Model Evidence Code came out, but was too radical and wasn’t adopted by any states.
ii.     1953: The Uniform Rules of Evidence came out, and they were simpler than the Model Rules, but only Kansas, New Jersey, Virgin Islands, & Panama Canal Zone adopted them.
iii.    1965: California tinkers with the URE and comes up with the California Rules of Evidence, which California still relies on today.
B.     Evidence Rules After 1975
1.    Codification of the Federal Rules of Evidence of 1975
a.     In the early 1970s the courts sent their suggestions of the Federal Evidence Rules to Congress. The conservative Senate and the liberal House fought over the rules, and many compromises were made, which created a rule that neither side really liked.
i.       The rules were finally promulgated by statute in 1975.
2.    Adoption of the Federal Rules of Evidence
a.     Within 20 years of the promulgation of the Federal Rules of Evidence, over 40 states adopted the rules in whole or part, but almost all states tinkered with them to some degree.
i.       Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois never adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence, because these big states had so much case law developed on evidence that they did not want to throw that all away.
3.    Promulgation of the Texas Rules of Evidence
a.     The Texas Rules of Civil Evidence were adopted in 1983 and the Texas Rules of Criminal Evidence follow shortly after in 1986.
i.       In the 1990s, Justice Hecht of the Supreme Court of Texas decided to combine the evidence rules and create a single body of evidence rules.
4.    Trends in Evidence Law
a.     The general trend in evidence law is to allow for greater admissibility and fewer technicalities.
i.       Civil Law
(1)        Greater admissibility helps the plaintiff, because more evidence can be admitted, but it also helps the defense because they have greater resources
ii.     Criminal Law
(1)        Greater admissibility helps the prosecutor, but almost never the defendant.
5.    Politics and Evidence Reform
a.     Conservative politicians generally want evidence reform to allow greater admissibility so prosecutors have fewer hurdles to cross in criminal prosecution.
b.     Liberal politicians want to put a halt on the war on crime and therefore push to go back to a more common law approach to evidence.
II.    Article IV – Relevancy
A.     Fed. Rule 401, 402, 403 – General Principles
1.    Relevancy and Admissiblity
a.     Relevancy is the ESSENTIAL prerequisite the admissibility of any evidence.
2.    Fed. Rule 401 – Definition of Relevancy
a.     “Relevant Evidence” means evidence having a tendency to make the existence of any fact that is in consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.
i.       In order to det