Understanding Relevance Legal Standard

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Recommended: Importance of evidence in the criminal justice process

In the grand scheme of trial, evidence is needed to convince jurors to give a verdict of guilt or not guilt. Evidence can take several forms such as physical evidence, substantial evidence. Regardless of what type evidence is presented must be relevant to the case to be admissible. “Relevance refers to any material fact or evidence having a tendency to make the existence of a matter at issue more probable than it would be without said fact (probative value)”(Britz, 2008, p. 344).

In this paper, an examination of the legal standard of relevance evidence will be discussed. Furthermore, the rules of inclusion and exclusion of evidence based on the wording of the rules will be scrutinized. In the final section, examples of evidence will be presented that could be both relevant and irrelevant for certain crime.

As mentioned earlier relevance evidence refers to any material fact or evidence that make the existence of a issue more probable than it would without facts. When evidence has been offered and a determination has been made to include it due to passing constitutional test and did not violated collection procedures, the supporter of the evidence will have to demonstrate the materiality, competency, and relevancy of same(Britz, 2008, p.273). The relevancy of an item evaluates the materiality of the item and its probative value.

The judge will conduct an evaluation evidence competency however, the jury can decide doing deliberation that a specific item or witness lacks credibility, in so doing refusing to consider it. In order to have the full understanding of evidence one need to understand the definition of relevance according to Federal Rules of Evidence. There are several reason evidence may be found to be lega...

... middle of paper ...

...the assassin in the drug case. This would be considered irrelevance.

In conclusion, as shown throughout this paper, evidence is needed to convince jurors to give a verdict of guilt or not guilt. Evidence comes in several forms such as physical evidence, substantial evidence. When evidence is presented, it acceptance in trial depends on relevant to the case to be admissible. “Relevance refers to any material fact or evidence having a tendency to make the existence of a matter at issue more probable than it would be without said fact (probative value)”(Britz, 2008, p. 344).

Works Cited

Britz, M.T. (2008). Criminal Evidence. Boston. Pearson Allyn & Bacon.

Federal Rules of Evidence (2011) Retrieved December 18, 2011, from http://www.law.cornell.edu

Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 560 (1967)

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