What happens if someone provides evidence in court without the knowledge of the judge? It is my understanding that the judge must accept (almost?) all evidence admitted into court. So, this leaves me with three questions: What happens if an official shows evidence that the judge hadn't agreed to feature in the trial? What happens if a private citizen does the above? What happens if the evidence happens to be inadmissible? This question was inspired by a question I raised in a comment to this question's answer. A user said it would be a good stand-alone question.
united-states I am answering this in the case of a criminal jury trial (given the context of the previous question). It is my understanding that the judge must accept (almost?) all evidence admitted into court. So, this leaves me with three questions: What happens if an official shows evidence that the judge hadn't agreed to feature in the trial? . . . What happens if the evidence happens to be inadmissible? A trial in a criminal case takes place in a courtroom at a predetermined date and time, with the prosecutor physically sitting at one table in front of a judge and the defendant and the defendant's lawyer physically sitting at another table in front of the judge, and a jury physically sitting in a seating area to the side of the judge, and a witness (usually) physically sitting in a chair on the other side of the judge (in rare circumstances, for minor witnesses, testimony is provided by telephone with the phone put on speaker in the courtroom for all to hear), and a court reporter or tape recorder keeping track of what happens verbatim. In a trial, essentially all evidence comes in through witnesses sitting on a special the chair in front of the judge designated for witnesses (called the witness stand) at the request of either the prosecuting attorney, or the defense attorney. This is the only way the evidence is introduced (other than by stipulations of both side's lawyers). Prosecutors and defense attorneys don't testify or provide evidence themselves. The judge is usually not told what evidence will be offered at trial in advance, although sometimes a pre-trial hearing is held to consider a particularly important piece of evidence's admissibility prior to trial, in a hearing on what is called a &quot;motion in limine&quot; or a &quot;motion to suppress&quot;. If that happens, the judge's decision made in advance will be honored by the judge when anyone tries to introduce the evidence at trial. But those are the exception and not the rule. Usually, any witnesses can be asked any questions at trial and the judge does not consider the admissibility of the answer to the question until it is asked and objected to by the other side's lawyer at trial. A defendant can choose to be, but is not required to be, a witness in his or her own case. In a trial, when it is their turn, the prosecution and defense, respectively, ask witnesses to sit at the witness stand one by one and ask them questions, which the witness answers under oath, absent an evidence objection from the other side's attorney. While a witness is on the stand, exhibits such as documents or physical objects can also be introduced into evidence in connection with the authenticating testimony of the witness (except in cases where both sides stipulate to the admission of the documents or other non-testimonial evidence). As the lawyers try to introduce evidence by asking a question to a witness on the stand, or by asking the judge for permission to introduce non-testimonial evidence, the other side's attorney can say, &quot;I object&quot;. If that happens, the witness on the stand is not allowed to answer the question and the non-testimonial evidence (e.g. documents, or a knife allegedly used in a crime) is not made available to the jury until the judge rules on whether it is admissible or not in accordance with the rules of evidence. Usually, the judge rules on the evidence objection immediately in the moment, although in rare cases, the judge will let the jury have a break for a few minutes while hearing arguments from the lawyers for both sides on about the relevant evidence rules and/or researching the legal issue, before ruling on the evidence issue. Once the judge rules on the evidence issue, the trial continues immediately. If the judge &quot;sustains&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the question doesn't get asked and/or the jury doesn't get to see the non-testimonial evidence. The lawyer whose question or offer to introduce evidence was successfully objected to moves on to their next question (if any) for the witness instead. If the judge &quot;overrules&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the witness answer the question and/or the jury gets to see the non-testimonial evidence which is &quot;received&quot; into evidence by the judge. This process continues continuously, for as many business days as it takes, until all witness testimony and all non-testimonial evidence has been presented to the court and both sides have told the court that they have presented all of their evidence. Then each side makes closing arguments to the jury, the judge reads the jury instructions of law on how to resolve the case, and the jury is sent to closed room to discuss the case and decide whether to say &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot; with respect to each charge brought by the prosecution in the trial. This decision is called a &quot;verdict&quot; and when the jury has made up its mind on all charges present to it, the jury lets the judge know that it has made up its mind, and the judge calls everyone back to the courtroom, and the jury tells the judge what they decided in open court. If the verdict is &quot;not guilty&quot; on all criminal charges in the case, then the case is over, with no post-trial motions and no appeals. If the verdict is &quot;guilty&quot; the defendant is convicted, subject to post-trial motions to declare a mistrial and appeals by the convicted defendant. If the convicted defendant appeals the case, and the judge abused his discretion in overruling an objection to the evidence that is made by the lawyer for the defendant (or the defendant personally if the defendant is not represented by a lawyer), because no reasonable judge could have found that the evidence was admissible under the circumstances, then the appellate court rules that the judge has made an &quot;error&quot;. The appellate court will not find that the judge's ruling is an &quot;error&quot; if the judge made the correct decision for the wrong reason. If it is reasonably possible that &quot;error&quot; possibly in combination with other errors made by the trial court judge could have caused a convicted criminal defendant to have been acquitted by the jury if the errors weren't made by the judge, then the defendant gets a new trial. The new trial usually before the same judge with a new jury. But the new trial is before a different judge and a new jury if the judge is no longer a judge on the court for any reason, or if the judge has been so defiant of the appellate court (typically ignoring its instructions in a retrial after a first appeal) that the appellate court decides it must remove the judge from the case. A criminal defendant is only acquitted by an appellate court if the appellate court finds that it would be impossible under any circumstances for the defendant to be convicted in a new trial, possibly with different evidence presented by the prosecution. What happens if a private citizen does the above? This doesn't make sense. Private citizens don't rule on the admissibility of evidence in a criminal trial, and can't introduce evidence in a criminal trial except at the request of a prosecuting attorney or defendant's attorney by being called as a witness and asking the questions that the lawyers (and sometimes the judge as well) asks the witness. Witnesses are not allowed to volunteer testimony or provide documents to a jury unless asked to do so by a lawyer in the case. What happens if someone provides evidence in court without the knowledge of the judge? As the process described above should make clear, this is basically impossible absent some extremely irregular event on the same level of irregularity as someone bribing a jury or threatening a jury with harm if he votes the wrong way.
What factors might a court consider in these circumstances? Is it true that anyone can just walk up and file a document in any case, with no requirement to identify themselves? If nobody admits to filing a document, it is likely that the court would grant a motion to strike the document and disregard it (revising a past ruling if the issue was raised within the six months allowed for reconsidering rulings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) or the state equivalent). A court document must, on its face, indicate a filing person and be signed to be accepted by the clerk of the court pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 or the state equivalent. But, if the document appears on its face to be legitimate, the person filing it will not generally be required to prove their identity. This happens even less often now than it used to (in the past, fake filings were often made by members of "sovereign citizens" movements to harass governmental officials), because in both the state courts were I practice and in federal court, documents must usually be filed with the court by lawyers via e-filing using a password protected e-filing account. Usually, only parties without lawyers and out of state lawyers who are still in the process of setting up their e-filing account file court documents in person. When documents are filed in person, they are also often delivered via courier rather than by the person who actually signed the documents. And, as a matter of practical reality, third-parties almost never file fake documents in court (in part, because there is usually someone present who is in a position to call attention to the fraud to the court). Still, this can happen, although it is very rare. I've only seen a situation like this come up once in twenty years of practice. (My account below oversimplifies some of the technical details of what happened to get to the gist of the points relevant to this question.) In that case, a lawyer was representing an ex-husband in a post-decree alimony modification case that had been appealed filed a bill of costs that she sought to recover on behalf of her client for the appeal, but she filed it in the wrong court (she filed it in the appellate court where she had represented her client, rather than, as required, in the trial court where another attorney had represented the ex-husband). When an order awarding him costs was not entered by any court, the ex-husband filed an (untimely) bill of costs in the trial court under his appellate lawyer's name using the appellate filing as a model, without her consent, by forging her name on the document. The lawyer didn't discover this (because she was retained only in the appeal and had never entered an appearance in the trial court and thus didn't have access to the trial court file, and because the court doesn't automatically send you a copy of your own filings) until I responded on behalf of the ex-wife to the forged bill of costs alleging that it was untimely which I served a copy of upon the ex-husband's lawyer as required by the rules. At that point, the ex-husband's lawyer immediately called me and the court to explain that she did not file this document and that it was forged (otherwise should could have been sanctioned for knowingly filing the bill of costs knowing that it was out of time and was frivolous at that point and could have been deemed to be responsible for further trial court proceedings of the ex-husband in the case, like keeping him appraised of deadlines, court rulings and filings by other lawyers in the case, since it appeared that she'd participated in the trial court case). Ultimately, the court declined to award the costs because they were filed in an untimely manner and because they were not really filed by the lawyer as claimed. So, the the court disregarded the bill of costs and denied this relief to the ex-husband. (If I was the judge, I would have hauled the ex-husband into court and held him in contempt of court sua sponte, but in this very busy court where hearings in divorcees are often scheduled two or more years out from the scheduling date, the judge didn't have the time to devote to issues like that.)
Here is an excellent (and extensive) explanation of jurisprudence regarding the "good faith exception" to the admissibility of evidence found due to an error. In short: Yes, the contraband found in Unit B would be evidence admissible in court. (Of course, evidence found in Unit B would only support charges against whomever had a nexus to that property. If the owner of Unit C had no access to Unit B, then evidence in Unit B would not per se implicate him in a crime.) Law enforcement will not return seized property if it believes the property is "contraband." As an example, in Pennsylvania a person can petition a court for return of property seized by law enforcement: Rule 588 requires the petitioner to establish entitlement to lawful possession of the property, but the motion will be rejected if the State successfully argues that the property is contraband, or "derivative contraband" (which has been defined in case law to mean there is "a specific nexus between the property and criminal activity").
National security letters can compel the production of some kinds of (non-&quot;content&quot;) user data, and (according to Wikipedia) typically contain a nondisclosure requirement forbidding the recipient of the letter from disclosing it. I assume that a witness has received and complied with a national security letter, and a non-government party wants to ask the witness questions which outside the courtroom, the witness would be forbidden to answer by the national security letter. The witness, or the government if represented in the lawsuit in question, may object to the questions. The purpose which justifies the secrecy requirements of a national security letter is also likely to justify the exercise of state secrets privilege. If the judge thinks a statute might otherwise be violated, they might intervene in the absence of any objection, or consider alternative remedies like an in camera hearing. If the court does not intervene to prevent the evidence being given, and the witness is charged with breaching the secrecy law, this would raise complex questions about the interpretation of the law imposing criminal penalties. The common law doctrine of absolute privilege for witnesses giving evidence in judicial proceedings applies in the United States, and could be raised in defence to any criminal charges.
It is true that judges in the US have absolute immunity from any lawsuit for damages arising from their performance of judicial functions. This applies even if those actions were corrupt, malicious, or illegal. The only exceptions to a judge's immunity to a lawsuit is if the conduct alleged was not a judicial action, or if the judge was acting in the complete absence of all jurisdiction. See, among others, Mireles v. Waco, 502 U.S. 9. However, the term "lawsuit" doesn't refer to criminal charges. Footnote 1 of Mireles specifically says criminal liability isn't blocked by judicial immunity. While a judge can't be sued for damages for rigging a trial, the judge can be prosecuted for doing that.
In the US, they would not be automatically prosecuted. The prosecutor would have to find out about the testimony, decide to prosecute, and go through all the normal processes they otherwise would, but they have an additional piece of evidence. Per the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution, a witness cannot be forced to answer a question that would incriminate them. If the question was objected to on this ground and the objection overruled, the witness' answer would not be admissible against that witness at trial, and the prosecutor would have to prove the case using other evidence.
You appear to be conflating two different legal concepts: evidence and proof. evidence something that furnishes proof: testimony; specifically: something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter proof the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact So evidence is presented to a tribunal who will then decide if that evidence meets the required burden of proof. In a civil matter the burden of proof is met on the preponderance of evidence (in a criminal matter the burden is beyond reasonable doubt) and the onus of proof rests with the person making the allegation. Preponderance is based on the more convincing evidence and its probable truth or accuracy, and not on the amount of evidence. Thus, one clearly knowledgeable witness may provide a preponderance of evidence over a dozen witnesses with hazy testimony, or a signed agreement with definite terms may outweigh opinions or speculation about what the parties intended. Certified mail is evidence (very strong evidence) that something was mailed and delivered. It is, as you rightly point out not evidence of what it contained. So let's follow through with your IRS hypothetical: No Certified Mail The IRS alledges that you did not file your tax return - they have the burden of proof. As evidence, they put forward an affidavit that no return was filed. You put forward an affidavit that you did file a return. The judge considers the evidence and (probably) gives more veracity to the IRS's affidavit than yours - the IRS have met their burden of proof. Certified Mail 1 The IRS alledges that you did not file your tax return - they have the burden of proof. As evidence, they put forward an affidavit that no return was filed. You put forward an affidavit that you did file a return and the proof of delivery from the USPS. The judge considers the evidence and (probably) considers that the IRS has recieved something from you: if it wasn't a tax return then they were in a position to give evidence as to what it was, and they didn't - given that it is the IRS that is obliged to prove that what they receieved wasn't a tax return, the IRS have not met their burden of proof. Certified Mail 2 The IRS alledges that you did not file your tax return - they have the burden of proof. As evidence, they put forward an affidavit that no return was filed but they did recieve an envelope stuffed with newspaper clippings and here they are. You put forward an affidavit that you did file a return and the proof of delivery from the USPS and you have no idea how they changed from a tax return to newspaper clippings in transit. The judge considers the evidence and (probably) gives more veracity to the IRS's affidavit than yours - the IRS have met their burden of proof.
To what standard does the evidence need to be convincing so that the judge is satisfied that a jury could “reasonably convict” the defendant? The High Court expanded on the answer to this question in Mitchell, the decision you cited, at [32]: [In R v Kim [2010] NZCA 106] the Court of Appeal discussed the meaning of “insufficient to justify a trial” in the context of sufficiency of evidence: It is for the jury to determine whether the evidence is, or is not, sufficient to establish guilt. It is not for the Judge to predict what the jury will find. The test is whether the evidence, if accepted by the jury, is sufficient in law to prove the essential elements of the charge to the required standard. If so, the Judge should leave the case to the jury and not withdraw it on evidentiary grounds. Can circumstantial/cumulative evidence be sufficient? In 2015, Dr Chris Gallavin, Dean of Law at Canterbury University, wrote: Circumstantial evidence is the bedrock of inferential reasoning. As advocates, we are well aware that a case is not “weak” by virtue of it being based upon circumstantial evidence alone (a common misconception). Circumstantial evidence will often form the base of a strong case, again, in both the criminal and civil jurisdiction alike. Does this evidence meet the standard asked about above? Unfortunately this question is not allowed, because the rules state: Please don't ask questions seeking legal advice on a specific matter. These are off-topic for Law Stack Exchange. While users generally contribute answers in good faith, the answers are not legal advice, and contributors here are not your lawyer. The test of “insufficient to justify a trial” is somewhat Delphic because it calls for an evaluative judgment. That judgment can only be formed by a court with relevant jurisdiction.