Relevance (law)

Relevance (law)

Relevance, in the common law of evidence, is the tendency of a given item of evidence to prove or disprove one of the legal elements of the case, or to have probative value to make one of the elements of the case likelier or not. Evidence that is irrelevant has no bearing on any of the issues, and the rules of evidence exclude it.

Under the Federal Rules of Evidence (United States jurisdiction)

Rule 401 of the Federal Rules of Evidence defines the term as follows:

"Relevant evidence" means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.

This definition incorporates the requirement that evidence be both material ("of consequence to the determination of the action") and have probative value ("having any tendency to make the existence of any [material] fact...more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence"). [Fisher, George. "Evidence". pp. 18-19. Foundation Press, 2002. ISBN 1-58778-176-X]

Evidence and the Matter Properly Provable

Relevancy is not an inherent characteristic of any item of evidence but exists only as a relation between an item of evidence and a matter properly provable in the case. [Advisory Committee’s Note to Rule 401, Fed. R. Evid.]

The initial step in determining relevancy is therefore to identify the "matter properly provable." As Professor James explained in a highly-regarded article, ' [t] o discover the relevancy of an offered item of evidence one must first discover to what proposition it is supposed to be relevant." [ United States v. Foster 986 F.2d 541 (D.C. Cir. 1993) citing James, Relevancy, Probability and the Law, 29 Cal. L. Rev. 689, 696 n. 15 (1941).]

Relevance and Admissibility

Generally, relevant evidence is admissible. [Fed. R. Evid. 402 (2007)] However, relevant evidence is not admissible if prohibited by the Constitution, an Act of Congress, by the Federal Rules of Evidence, or by rules prescribed by the Supreme Court. ["Id."] Under the Federal Rules of Evidence, relevant evidence may be excluded on the basis of enumerated grounds. ["See" Fed. R. Evid. 403 (2007)]

Relevance is Required but May Not be Sufficient

Rule 402. Relevant Evidence Generally Admissible; Irrelevant Evidence Inadmissible

All relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the Constitution of the United States, by Act of Congress, by these rules, or by other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court pursuant to statutory authority. Evidence which is not relevant is not admissible.

Relevance is ordinarily a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition, for the admissibility of evidence. For example, relevant evidence may be excluded if its tendency to prove or disprove a fact is heavily outweighed by the possibility that the evidence will prejudice or confuse the jury.

Inadmissible versus Excluded Evidence

FRE 402 refers to relevant evidence as 'inadmissible' if 'otherwise provided by' several sources of law. [Fed. R. Evid. 402] . Yet, FRE 403 refers to 'exclusion of "relevant"' evidence. [Fed. R. Evid. 403] It is clear that evidence excluded under FRE 403 is inadmissible. However, it is not clear that inadmissible evidence is considered 'excluded' within the meaning of the Federal Rules of Evidence.

Exclusion of Relevant Evidence

Rule 403. Exclusion of Relevant Evidence on Grounds of Prejudice, Confusion, or Waste of Time
Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.

Relevant evidence may be excluded if the probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of one of the enumerated grounds for exclusion. [Federal Rules of Evidence 403. Exclusion of Relevant Evidence on Grounds of Prejudice, Confusion, or Waste of Time] The grounds for exclusion include unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence. Relevant evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of:
* unfair prejudice;
* confusion of the issues;
* misleading the jury;
* considerations of undue delay;
* waste of time; or
* needless presentation of cumulative evidence.

In a exemplary hypothetical; if 100 witnesses saw the same accident, and would each give roughly the same description of the event, the testimony of each would be equally relevant, but it would be a waste of time or a needless presentation of cumulative evidence to have all 100 repeat the same facts at trial.

Preservation of the Issue

To preserve legal error for review, objections must be raised. [Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(1)] Oftentimes objections against the introduction of evidence is made on the basis of relevance. However, the rules and opinions demonstrate that relevant evidence includes a significant portion of typically offered evidence. Since objections are required to the specific and timely, merely objecting on the basis of relevance, without more, may prevent the review of legal error on appeal. [Fed. R. Evid. 103(a)(1)] [United States v. Wilson, 966 F.2d 243 (7th Cir. 1992)] More particularly, making an objection based on “relevance” does not preserve an error based on Rule 403. [United States v. Wilson, 966 F.2d 243 (7th Cir. 1992)] Cases that lack specific and timely objections are sometimes referred to a having 'poor records' because errors made by the lower court may not be reviewed on appeal.

Public policy concerns

A variety of social policies operate to exclude relevant evidence. Thus, there are limitations on the use of evidence of liability insurance, subsequent remedial measures, settlement offers, and plea negotiations, mainly because it is thought that the use of such evidence discourages parties from carrying insurance, fixing hazardous conditions, offering to settle, and pleading guilty to crimes, respectively.

References


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • relevance — rel·e·vance / re lə vəns/ n: the quality or state of being relevant: relation to the matter at hand ruled on the relevance of the testimony relevance in discovery has been broadly interpreted Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Merriam Webster.… …   Law dictionary

  • Relevance (disambiguation) — Relevance is a measure of how pertinent, connected, or applicable something is.Relevance may also refer to:*Relevance (information retrieval), a measure of a document s applicability to a given subject or search query *Relevance (law), regarding… …   Wikipedia

  • Relevance — is a term used to describe how pertinent, connected, or applicable something is to a given matter. A thing is relevant if it serves as a mean to a given purpose. Imagine a patient suffering a well defined disease such as scurvy caused by lack of… …   Wikipedia

  • Law of India — refers to the system of law which presently operates in India. It is largely based on English common law because of the long period of British colonial influence during the British Raj period. Much of contemporary Indian law shows substantial… …   Wikipedia

  • Law enforcement agency — (LEA) is a term used to describe either an organisation that enforces the laws of one or more governing bodies, or an organisation that actively and directly assists in the enforcement of laws. In doing so, the LEA assists the governing bodies to …   Wikipedia

  • Law school rankings in the United States — Law school rankings are a specific subset of college and university rankings dealing specifically with law schools. Like college and university rankings, law school rankings can be based on empirical data, subjectively perceived qualitive data… …   Wikipedia

  • Relevance — Rel e*vance (r?l ?*vans), Relevancy Rel e*van*cy ( van*s?), n. 1. The quality or state of being relevant; pertinency; applicability. [1913 Webster] Its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore. Poe. [1913 Webster] 2. (Scots Law) Sufficiency… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • law of limitation — law that sets a time limit on the relevance of certain matters to the public …   English contemporary dictionary

  • Law and literature — The law and literature movement focuses on the interdisciplinary connection between law and literature. Believed to have originally begun as a subcategory of jurisprudence, the movement encompasses the complementary ideas of law in literature and …   Wikipedia

  • Relevance (information retrieval) — In the context of information science and information retrieval, relevance denotes how well a retrieved set of documents (or a single document) meets the information need of the user. Topical relevance and other kinds of relevance Relevance most… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”