Articles in the Evidence category - Page 15 of 29

Suppose that the defendant is charged with a gang-related murder. The State seeks to establish that the defendant is a gang member by introducing a photograph that a detective found […]

In this, my last post in a long series on hearsay exceptions, I’ll address the Rule 804 exception for statements against penal interest. Rule 804(b)(3) creates a hearsay exception for […]

The decades-old state supreme court decision in State v. Knoll, 322 N.C. 535 (1988), dismissing charges against three impaired driving defendants, is confusing.  For starters, the Knoll court’s decision hinged […]

Rule 804 contains five hearsay exceptions that apply when the declarant is unavailable. I addressed one of them—the residual exception—in a prior post. Another one of the five—statements of family […]

In earlier posts I covered the major Rule 803 hearsay exceptions, for which unavailability is immaterial. Rule 804 contains additional hearsay exceptions, but they only apply when the declarant is […]

You don’t have to attend basic law enforcement training to identify a potential impaired driver.  Plenty of folks without police training could roll off a list of tell-tale signs, including […]

In a series of posts, I’ve been covering some of the hearsay exceptions that arise most commonly in criminal cases. The residual exceptions make that list. Here is your primer […]

The television news magazine  20/20 aired video footage last fall of North Carolina law enforcement officers speeding on Interstate 40 near Raleigh. Reporters followed the police vehicles to determine whether […]

In my last blog post on hearsay exceptions, I discussed the business records exception. Here, I’ll address the hearsay exception for public records and reports. Rule 803(8) provides a hearsay […]

Continuing my series on commonly used hearsay exceptions, we arrive, in this post, at the business records exception. This one comes up a lot in criminal cases. Here are the […]