Is evidence of rumours of a defendant&#39;s racism unhelpful in a defamation case involving accusations of cheating? Defendant accuses Plaintiff of cheating in a competition. Plaintiff sues Defendant for defamation. Plaintiff has heard rumours that Defendant is racist. Assuming these could be substantiated in some way: Would it have been unhelpful for Plaintiff to bring this up in the lawsuit (given that Plaintiff did not do so)? Would it be unhelpful for Plaintiff to bring this up later on eg in depositions or actual trial?
Information about a defendant’s character or past misdeeds are not generally admissible during a court proceeding. It can be brought in to rebut testimony. If the defendant takes the stand and asserts that they never discriminated against anyone due to their nation of origin, then evidence they they have done so becomes relevant.
How are such no-show-no-tell boundaries established They largely stem from the rules of evidence which are complicated, vary from state to state and knowing which is a big part of what litigation attorneys are paid for. Parties to litigation become aware of all the evidence/topics that their counterparts wish to broach in the courtroom well in advance — during discovery. They will usually disagree whether some bits and pieces can be presented to the jury. In this case the court will hold admissibility hearings — again, well in advance before the trial. Despite all the preparations, some of these disagreements arise during the trial, and then they are resolved in place by way of voiced objections. The attorneys and the judge talk about them using professional jargon of the rules of evidence — having themselves seen all the evidence in advance. does the jury get to know them No, the jury doesn't need to follow the professional talk. In fact, they should hear as little as possible of it — which is the reason why admissibility disagreements are resolved in advance as much as possible. If serious issues arise during the trial, the judge will ask the attorneys to speak to them in chambers — away from the jury. Or they will ask the jury to take a break while the professionals talk. The jury just needs to listen to the evidence that is allowed in, and disregard any evidence the judge say they have to. is this also in the public record somehow? It is in the court record. It may be accessible to the public if the court allows. If someone wishes to see the record they need to apply to the court, provide reasons and a judge will decide if anything can be released.
An appeal may be made by a plaintiff, prosecutor, defendant or other interested party, so the term 'defendant' is not very useful; the party opposed to the Appellant (and served with the appeal) is usually called the Respondent. A contested appeal just means that the Respondent wishes to be represented at the appeal, presumably to fight it; most appeals are contested, but not all. Unlike a first-order case which may go by default, an uncontested appeal will still have to have some sort of a hearing; you are, after all, saying that a court decision should be set aside, and the Respondent's views are not necessarily relevant. It is, though, fair to say that an uncontested appeal will have a greater chance of success.
united-states A similar issue came up in my answer to Can a private person deceive a defendant to obtain evidence?. I don't think the question itself is a duplicate, so instead I'll just copy the relevant section from my answer with minor edits. The short answer is yes, the privilege applies. The case of US v. Tyler, 745 F. Supp. 423 (W.D. Mich. 1990) matches your hypothetical almost exactly. The defendant, James Tyler, shared a prison cell with Melvin Deutsch, who said that he was a lawyer, had what appeared to be a law school diploma on the wall of his cell, and was addressed as &quot;counselor&quot; by other inmates; but in fact was not a lawyer. Nevertheless, correspondence between Tyler and Deutsch regarding Tyler's legal issues was held to be privileged and inadmissible. Tyler was held to have had a reasonable belief that Deutsch was a lawyer, despite that Deutsch had never been licensed to practice law in any jurisdiction, and that the law school diploma was (presumably) fake. Tyler evidently didn't check on either of those things, and the court did not seem to think that he reasonably should have. Also, Tyler apparently did not know the seemingly obvious fact that a convicted felon cannot practice law, let alone while actually in prison. However, this was not felt by the court to be &quot;ingenuous&quot;: &quot;To expect a layperson to be familiar with the internal discipline procedures of the Bar is unreasonable.&quot; There is also a discussion of such situations in the following article: Grace M. Giesel, Upjohn Warnings, The Attorney-client Privilege, And Principles Of Lawyer Ethics: Achieving Harmony, 65 U. Miami L. Rev. 109 (2015). Available at this link See Section IV.D.2 on page 140: In addition to applying the honest-and-reasonable-belief analysis in the attorney-client privilege setting to the question of representational relationship, courts have also applied the analysis when the person consulted is not, in fact, a lawyer. The courts addressing this issue have stated that the privilege applies to a communication even if the person consulted is not admitted to any bar and has enjoyed no legal training. If the putative client honestly and reasonably believes that the person consulted is a lawyer, and if the other requirements of the privilege are satisfied, the privilege applies even though the person consulted is, in fact, not a lawyer. See the article for additional citations. The article also mentions that certain states make this principle explicit by statute. For instance, the Kentucky Rules of Evidence, Rule 503(a)(3): &quot;Lawyer&quot; means a person authorized, or reasonably believed by the client to be authorized to engage in the practice of law in any state or nation.
There is no public place to “file” that. When privilege is claimed and the other side challenges it then the person claiming privilege needs to establish somehow that the attorney client relationship exists and is pertinent to the question. In the normal course of things there would be an engagement agreement in the attorneys files. And not everything communicated between a client and attorney is protected by the privilege. It only covers legal advice and specifically does not cover discussions planning criminal activity.
Yes. The jurisdiction I am familiar with is England and Wales. Conviction requires evidence (witness testimony is evidence) which proves the case "beyond reasonable doubt". It is open to the jury to find the witness so convincing that they find that they are sure the defendant committed the crime. In general of course, prosecutors prefer to have some supporting evidence (either additional witnesses, or circumstantial evidence - like DNA.)
Is this normal? Pretty much. Witnesses lie in court all the time (in my experience, defendants, law enforcement officers and medical doctors are the most likely to lie). Dealing with a witness who lies in court under oath effectively is one of the most challenging tasks lawyers face. It is an inherently challenging hurdle to proving or defending a case. The facts as presented in court often differ in some material way from reality. It is a pretty tough thing to accurately measure, but my gut estimate would be that this happens in a least 30%-40% of cases that produce contested trials, although not infrequently, a judge or jury will not find the false testimony to be credible. On the other hand, it isn't at all uncommon (probably at least 10% of the time) for a judge or jury to believe the liars to be telling the truth, and to find the people who are telling the truth to be less credible. There is absolute immunity from civil liability for lying in court testimony, although it could, in theory, give rise to contempt of court sanctions from the judge in some circumstances, or to a prosecution for perjury. But, perjury prosecutions are, in practice, very rare, and a good share of them arise from false statements made in documents under oath, rather than from courtroom testimony. There is probably less than 1 perjury prosecution per 1000 provable lies made under oath in courtroom testimony on material issues that end up influencing the outcome in a case. I totally sympathize with how frustrating this situation is having been there in cases that I am litigating many, many times. But, in short, life isn't fair.
This is defamation, a civil matter, where you may sue the person who makes these statements. If you sue them, the question is whether accusing a person of sexually abusing a 2 year old would lower the person in the eyes of others, and the answer is &quot;Yes, you don't even have to prove that there was actual harm&quot; (this is know as per se defamation): it is both accusation of a crime and accusation of reprehensible moral conduct. Making the statement in public is all it takes – &quot;public&quot; means &quot;someone other than the object of the accusation&quot;. The only defense is proving that the statement is true. Your attorney can advise you how much money you might awarded in a successful suit, also any downside to suing the ex. If you are playing defamation whack-a-mole, this probably involves getting an injunction against doing this again.