When a child dies and there are signs of physical abnormalities—bruises, tearing, etc.—the result may be testimony of “unquestionable” or “unmistaken” signs of sexual abuse. That in turn may lead to criminal prosecution, conviction, and even a sentence of death. Yet both the advance of science and the simple act of paying greater attention to
We are lawyers because we were not the strongest at science or math, or so the popular trope goes. But numbers pervade the courtroom – employment discrimination statistics, medical causation analysis, DNA probabilities, and occasionally the likelihood that a particular person committed the crime or that the act was criminal rather than accidental. So it
On October 25, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court adopted two amendments to the Pennsylvania Rules of Evidence – the definitions of PRESENT SENSE IMPRESSIONS and EXCITED UTTERANCES both had new language added. Each rule now concludes with the following statement: When the declarant is unidentified, the proponent shall show by independent corroborating evidence that the
Imagine being the lawyer assigned to handle a high-profile, “cold” [twenty year old] murder case where the evidence was all scientific: The swab from [the victim’s] left fingernail included a mixture of DNA profiles…[and] defendant’s DNA profile matched the major donor’s. Vaginal and rectal swabs…also matched defendant’s DNA profile.“ What do you need? You need
If news accounts are accurate, Paul Manafort’s lawyers twice asked non-leading questions, on cross-examination, of the Government’s most important witnesses – the defendant’s accountant and Rick Gates, the latter the sometimes partner of or aide to Manafort. And again, if the news accounts are accurate, the answers hurt. What occurred? In each instance, the lawyer
If a client tells a lie to her/his lawyer, is that communication still privileged? The answer is indisputably “yes,” and if a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/ex-state-chief-justice-backs-embattled-former-state-prosecutor-20180801.html) is accurate a former State Supreme Court Justice got that question wrong. What’s the background? A lawyer disciplinary hearing was looking into whether a former prosecutor improperly
It is tempting, and understandably so, for any lawyer to argue to the jury that an opposing witness is a “liar,” that the witness’ story is “malarkey,” or that the story given was “an insult to the jury’s intelligence,” as long as the proof supports those conclusions. But a recent 1st Circuit decision warns prosecutors
When may a lawyer, seeking to challenge the credibility of a witness, prove that the witness lied in a different trial [or a pre-trial proceeding in a different case]? One may turn to Federal Rule of Evidence 608(b) for a partial answer; but not all states have adopted 608(b) – Pennsylvania being one example –
He did it because of a genetic predisposition; She did it because of a head injury from being abused as a child. Which story is more powerful? In the world of sentencing – be it in a capital case where life is literally on the line, or in a non-capital prosecution where loss of liberty
A house on fire, an occupant wakes up and yells “my brother, my brother.” The occupant dies, and his brother is charged with murder. Are the words “an assertion,” are they offered for the truth of the matter asserted, and should they be admissible? This precise scenario was at the heart of a recent decision