Articles in the Evidence category - Page 29 of 29

I was on vacation last week, and the buzz around Melendez-Diaz — see this prior post for the basics — was partly drowned out by the sound of the waves […]

In yesterday’s frivolous post, I said that legal news was slow. Not anymore! The United States Supreme Court decided Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts yesterday. It’s a big Confrontation Clause case, and […]

It seems that video cameras are everywhere, these days: at the bank, at every youth soccer game, in jails and prisons, at Wal-Mart. One often-cited (but apparently questionable) statistic suggests […]

Editor’s note: A previous post concerning a United States Supreme Court case about post-conviction DNA testing appears here. Recently, I’ve been getting a lot of calls about requests for post-conviction […]

Suppose that an eyewitness testifies for the state on direct examination that he saw the defendant snatch an old woman’s purse and run off. The defense cross-examines the witness about […]

Can a lay witness testify that she could tell just by looking at a substance that it was, in fact, a controlled substance? (Let’s assume the witness has extensive dealings […]

Once again, my interest in criminal law and my interest in technology have come together in a brewing legal controversy.  The issue is whether a DWI defendant who has submitted […]

The United States Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in the Osborne case, an Alaska case that asks whether a criminal defendant who claims that he has been wrongfully convicted […]

Further Update: The court has reissued an opinion in this case. On the issue discussed below, it is very similar — at a minimum — to the original opinion. Update: […]

The Court of Appeals decided two rape shield cases this month — State v. Cook and State v. Adu — and Cook, in particular, is a good illustration of how […]