By Robert I. Feinberg | Published July 18, 2013 | Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Tags: litigation, trial | Leave a comment
Daniel Patrick Moynihan is a name that may be familiar to most. He was a United States Cabinet official, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and a United States Senator from New York. He was also an author of many articles on urban neighborhoods. When I was in college in the 1970s, Moynihan Read More
Read MoreWinston Churchill once famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Perhaps the worst form of ascertaining the truth is the American civil court system, except for all the others. I guess, all in all, it is pretty darn good. It may have its faults as Churchill thought about Read More
Read MoreHaving just read the accounts of the Whitey Bulger trial, I am reminded of one judge’s adage, “cross-examine and cross-examine vigorously.” Certainly the prosecution’s witness, James Martorano, deserves this as will the defendant himself, assuming, as expected, he takes the witness stand. What is the concept behind cross-examination? Basically, in the fresh air of the Read More
Read MoreAlthough all evidence introduced by a lawyer must be considered “relevant evidence” before it can be admitted, many lawyers today would nevertheless struggle to give an adequate legal definition of the word “relevancy”. According to the Advisory Committee’s notes in drafting Rule 401 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, the proper definition is in the Read More
Read MoreThough they seem similar, there are clear and definitive differences between Rule 803(1) Present Sense Impressions and Rule 803(2) Excited Utterances. If applied correctly, each rule provides an exception to the the rule against hearsay. The former is used in court in the trial of a personal injury case far more than the latter. The Read More
Read MoreIn my last blog, I wrote of the rule pertaining to admissions of party opponents, 801(d)(2) of the Federal Rules of Evidence and the Massachusetts Guide to Evidence. Let’s contrast that to Rule 804(b)(3)’s declarations against interests exception. The most fundamental difference between these two exceptions is that in the first exception the declarant must Read More
Read MoreWhen a forty-six year old Massachusetts boiler repairman received a phone call from a condominium complex to repair a boiler unit, he had no idea that his life was about to change. The boiler unit exploded, and the repairman was terribly scalded on more than fifty percent of his body. His life would never be Read More
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