A UNC School of Government Blog
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 on those exceptions. Generally. Even if an out-of-court statement doesn’t fall within a specific hearsay exception, it still may be admissible under the residual exceptions … Read more
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 exception for “[r]ecords, reports, statements, or data compilations, in any form, of public offices or agencies, setting forth: (A) the activities of the office or … Read more
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 basics. Covered Records. The exception applies to “a memorandum, report, record, or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions, or diagnoses.” N.C. … Read more
In a series of blog posts, I’ve been tackling the most common hearsay exceptions. This post focuses on the Rule 803(5) exception for recorded recollections. N.C. Rule 803(5) contains a hearsay exception for “[a] memorandum or record concerning a matter about which a witness once had knowledge but now has insufficient recollection to enable him … Read more
Rule 803 sets out twenty-three hearsay exceptions that apply regardless of the declarant’s availability. Two that arise with some frequency in criminal cases are present sense impressions and excited utterances. Here’s what you need to know about those exceptions. Present Sense Impression. Rule 803(1) provides an exception for “[a] statement describing or explaining an event … Read more
I field a lot of calls from prosecutors, defenders, and judges about evidence issues. Character evidence is one area that accounts for a lot of those calls. And no wonder. The rules are complicated and almost impossible to keep straight. The basic rule is that character evidence can’t be admitted to show propensity. Thus, evidence … Read more
I previously posted (here) about impeaching a witness with a prior inconsistent statement. In this blog post I’ll address impeaching with evidence of bias. As our blog readers know, a witness may be impeached with evidence that he or she is biased because of, for example, affection for or dislike of a party or self-interest … Read more
Trial lawyers love a good gotcha moment and this method of impeachment–by prior inconsistent statement–presents lots of opportunities for that. Proving that a witness previously made statements inconsistent with his or her trial testimony impeaches the witness by casting doubt on the witness’s credibility. Note that use of a prior inconsistent statement for impeachment purposes … Read more
When the police seize a gun in the course of an investigation, what becomes of it after any resulting court case concludes? A recent legislative enactment has changed the most common answer to that question – and may leave a significant number of weapons in limbo. Prior law. Until recently, G.S. 15-11.1(b1) provided that once … Read more
If you’re on my listserv, you know that the NC Supreme Court recently issued several confrontation clause decisions, all dealing with substitute analysts (if you’re not on my listserv, you can sign up here for my case summaries). I’ve previously written (here) about Williams v. Illinois, the US Supreme Court’s most recent confrontation decision on … Read more