"Evidence never lies," the saying goes. But police and law enforcement agents sometimes do. For example, police can plant a gun at a crime scene as "evidence" to justify an armed robbery arrest. DNA evidence can be tampered with to alter its results. Documents and police reports can be forged or completely fabricated. And crucial forensic evidence can be covered up or hidden altogether.
Unfortunately, dirty cops are out there. False, forged or tainted evidence is unjustly used to either convict an innocent person, or to guarantee conviction of a guilty person. When this happens, a crime has been committed. What follows is some basic legal information concerning evidence as it it used and interpreted in a court of law.
In a court of law, evidence is defined as: data presented to a court or jury in proof of the facts in issue. Such evidence may include the testimony of witnesses, records, documents, or objects.
The term "Rules of evidence" is a legal term referring to the conditions under which proof of a case (i.e., evidence of the claims of a case) may be placed before a judge or jury for consideration.
A motion to suppress evidence is a request by a lawyer to a judge to prevent evidence from being presented in a court of law. The motion is based on what is known as the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule is a clause of constitutional law holding that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law.
For purposes of clarity in jurisprudence, there are different types of evidence that can enter into a trial or evidentiary hearing. Some of the major categories of evidence include
In evidence law, it is the client's privilege to refuse to disclose and to prevent any other person from disclosing confidential communications between the client and his or her attorney. Such privilege protects communications between attorney and client made for the purpose of furnishing or obtaining professional legal advice or assistance. This privilege permits an attorney to refuse to testify as to communications from the client though it belongs to the client, not the attorney, and hence the client may waive it. In federal courts, state law is applied with respect to such privilege.
The attorney-client privilege was established to provide a safe, secure, and non-threatening relationship between lawyer and client. This safety and protection encourages clients to disclose to their attorneys all pertinent information in legal matters by protecting such disclosures from discovery at trial. The privileged information, held strictly between the attorney and the client, may remain private as long as a court does not force disclosure. In its most common use, the attorney claims the privilege on behalf of the client in refusing to disclose to the court or any other party requested information about the client's case.
However, the privilege does not apply to communications between an attorney and a client made to further a fraud or crime. For example, a cop who has planted illegal evidence cannot claim attorney-client privilege to further any fraudulent acts relating to the forging of that evidence.
Another important legal concept is chain of evidence. Chain of evidence in its basic form refers to the number of persons who have handled a given piece of evidence – along with the authority of those persons. Since physical evidence in a criminal case can either convict or acquit a defendant, it is absolutely vital to ensure that all evidence be handled in the most scrupulous manner. Chain of evidence rules demand that the transfer of criminal evidence be handled by as few persons as possible, and that all those authorized to handle evidence document the time and date of their handling.
The Best Evidence Rule is a rule of evidence law requiring that to prove the content of a writing, recording, or photograph, the original writing, recording, or photograph is required. See Fed. R. Ev. 1002. "Where the terms are material, the original writing must be produced unless it is shown to be unavailable for some reason other than the serious fault of the proponent."
The general principle behind the best evidence rule is that a copy or reproduction of an article of evidence should not be admitted if the original document can be produced. The rationale for the best evidence rule can be understood from the context in which it arose: in the eighteenth century a copy was usually made by hand by a clerk (or even a litigant). The best evidence rule was predicated on the assumption that, if the original was not produced, there was a significant chance of error or fraud in relying on such a copy. Thus, the "best evidence'" is that from which all secondary evidence is derived.
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