Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
Certain legal principles have raging within them a kind of civil war. Important but abstract policy concerns pull the doctrine in one direction; common sense and practical experience pull it in another. Casualties ensue.
Perhaps no body of legal doctrine better exemplifies this sort of internal conflict than the general ban on character evidence, as embodied in Federal Rule of Evidence 404(a)(1). That rule states: “Evidence of a person’s character or character trait is not admissible to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with that character or trait.” The rule has deep roots in the common law.
Recommended Citation
Niehoff, Leonard and Shannon Hickey. "Civil War: A Law at War With Itself - Character Evidence and the Doctrine of Chances." Litigation 50, no. 14 (2024).
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Evidence Commons, Litigation Commons
Comments
© 2024, Published in Litigation 50, no. 14 Summer 2024, by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or downloaded or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.