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 (such as the United States and, to an extent, Australia) 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 which involving law enforcement conducting warrantless searches of the petitioners' homes, with incriminating evidence being descried inside them.
Criteria
Relevance
For evidence to be admissible, it must
tend to prove or disprove some fact at issue in the proceeding. However, if the
utility of this evidence is outweighed by its tendency to cause the fact finder
to disapprove of the party it is introduced against for some unrelated reason,
it is not admissible. Furthermore, certain public-policy considerations bar the
admission of otherwise relevant evidence.
Reliability
For evidence to be admissible enough to
be admitted, the party proffering the evidence must be able to show that the
source of the evidence makes it so. If evidence is in the form of witness testimony,
the party that introduces the evidence must lay the groundwork for the
witness's credibility and knowledge. Hearsay is generally barred for its lack
of reliability. If the evidence is documentary, the party proffering the
evidence must be able to show that it is authentic, and must be able to demonstrate
the chain of custody from the original author to the present holder. The trial
judge performs a "gatekeeping" role in excluding unreliable
testimony. The United States Supreme Court first addressed the reliability
requirement for experts in the landmark case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. The Court laid out four
non-exclusive factors that trial courts may consider when evaluating scientific
expert reliability: (1) whether scientific evidence has been tested and the
methodology with which it has been tested; (2) whether the evidence has been
subjected to peer review or publication; (3) whether a potential rate of error
is known; and (4) whether the evidence is generally accepted in the scientific
community. Kumho Tire Co., Ltd. v.
Carmichael later extended the Daubert analysis to include
all expert testimony. It bears an effect
on the verdict of the court.
Issues with admissibility of evidence in
non-democratic regimes
In some non-democratic legal systems,
the courts effectively function as organs of those in power, and the rules of
evidence are designed to favor their interests. In the People's Republic
of China, for example, it has been observed that courts have historically
accepted evidence that would be excluded in other systems, such as confessions obtained
by torture. Evidence was introduced by the court itself, rather than the state,
and evidence was used as part of "a process of legitimizing the conclusion
which had already been drawn before the trial". These practices have, in
theory, been reformed by legislation, but questions remain as to whether they
continue in practice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admissible_evidence
See also: https://www.justia.com/criminal/procedure/admissibility-evidence/
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