evidance essay

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A. Harrison’s. Harrisons firs part of his testimony that he witnessed Tom once angrily beat his sister with a flashlight is admissible. Normally under Character evidence rules you cannot bring in a defendants character to prove that he acted in conformity with a character trait. However it can be brought if he is bringing for a different reason. In this case he is bringing it to show that he had anger intent toward his wife. In order to be able to bring in character evidence in a criminal case the evidence must be pertinent to the charge that’s given. Here the charge is murder.
Character evidence is pretty pertinent in this case. The defense may argue that its different because one is an assault case and one is a murder case. However there is a problem work against the defense in this case. The fist thing is that their Murder is a violent crime. You really cant get, ore violent then murdering your ex wife. Assault is also a violent crime I don’t thing the defense will argue that hitting your ex wife is no violent.
The next problem they defense is that Harrison is testifying to he fact that he had intent. To kill his wife because he was angry with her the last time he hit her. Therefore this time it will be a lot harder for him to claim that he did not have the intent to kill her. The defense may try to argue that this can’t come in because the defendant had not yet raised self-defense. However this would be overruled because the rules allow character evidence to show intent to come in during the plaintiff’s case in chief. This can be offered for substantive evidence since it’s not for impeachment purposes. It’s not being brought up to impeach a testifying witness,
The sec...

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... agreed upon that all the knives were in the kitchen at the time.
E. Donald can testify that in his opinion Tom is a peaceful person this can voice in under opinion evidence. Since Tom has known him since childhood. Even though hey has Lived in Austin for the past year he still can testify to his opinion of him Since its his opinion that has been established Further he goes back there monthly. The prosecutor can ask him question such as if he was aware than his friend of many years had a violent temper, However she has to leave it at that.
This can come in under thrash the victim rule. Katie can testify to the fact that that Katie is a violent person. Not only that in bolsters Toms self defense claim. Since he can show that his wife was not only violent but in the past hit him as well, therefore he had reason to believe she would kill him.

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