When is an email message admissible evidence? I am a parent who is pursuing a special education impartial hearing without a lawyer. I have learned (in the hearing) that I can question district employee A about an email message I sent to that person, or that that person sent to me. However, I noticed that if the email message was sent to a different district employee, B, I can't ask employee A about it, even if A and B were working closely together on the matters mentioned in the message. What about an email message I wrote to another witness, who is not a district employee? In this case, it happens to be one of my expert witnesses. In that message I described a specific incident that the student experienced at school. I wrote the message the day the incident occurred, after my child described it to me. Can I introduce that message, and question my expert witness about it? I would like to use the witness as a fact witness (did you receive that email message?) and as an expert witness (is there a nexus between an incident such as what was described in the email, and the disability that this child has been diagnosed with?). I think this is similar to Anita Hill bringing in friends who testified to the incidents she described to them during the period of time that the incidents were occurring. Does my reasoning sound okay? I am planning to testify about the description of the incident that I heard from my child, but my child has decided not to testify about that particular incident, which was embarrassing to the child. I'm looking for a way to strengthen, with evidence, the description I will give in my testimony. The incident occurred between one and two years ago, if that helps. Edit 9/27/16: I found that I was permitted to introduce emails as long as I followed the five business days disclosure rule, and as long as I was careful to submit the email in its entirety (i.e. with the header and with no words or paragraphs removed). However, I did trim out signatures and redundant tails, to improve the readability of my email archive, and that was permitted. When I discovered, during the hearing, that I needed to ask a witness about an email that I had not disclosed as an exhibit, then I found out there are two ways to proceed: 1) if it's short, read it out loud to the witness and then ask a question about it. 2) bring extra copies, show it to the witness, and introduce it into evidence then and there.
You're going to an administrative hearing overseen by an "Impartial Hearing Officer" (IHO). Your goal should be to present your case in as clear, concise, and compelling a manner as possible. If there are guidelines for the hearing then abide by those. Ideally, the IHO will be a real lawyer or judge, in which case they will likely be concerned with giving everyone a chance to advance their position and then efficiently achieving a resolution of the issue that appears most impartial and is least upsetting to everyone involved. Often, however, you will find the IHO is a bureaucrat who enjoys making up and enforcing procedural rules. In which case all you can do is ask, "What are the rules?" and do your best to follow them (or just start working on your appeal now). For example, if the IHO wants to make the hearing "court-like," then you could read your state's Code of Civil Procedure. But if you bring a copy and when the IHO says X point out the CCP says Y, then all you will have accomplished is to irritate the IHO: He'll either grudgingly allow Y, or declare that in his hearing it's X. That will not help you achieve your goal. Re-reading your question: It sounds like you're trying to make up rules for yourself. Remember that you are not a lawyer, and the hearing is not a court of law. If you assert evidence it should be accepted based on what a "reasonable person" would believe. You don't have to establish a forensic chain of custody. So tell your story, and if there's an email that documents it more compellingly &ndash; e.g., because you're recounting events from two years ago &ndash; then note that you're reading what you wrote two years ago as opposed to stating what you remember now, because that bolsters the credibility of your testimony. If there's evidence in an Email from B, and A knows something about those matters, you should be allowed to ask A about the substance informed by the Email, even if A can't address the writing or sending of that particular message. (But remember: Never ask a hostile party a question if you don't already know what their answer should be!) If you really want to prepare, find someone to play devil's advocate, and present your case to them. That's a good way to find and correct things that hurt or distract from your case.
This is normal. It only seems imbalanced because only the prosecutor has been able to call witnesses so far. Under Minnesota Rule of Evidence 611: Ordinarily leading questions should be permitted on cross-examination. When a party calls a hostile witness, an adverse party, or a witness identified with an adverse party, interrogation may be by leading questions. At this point, only the prosecution has put on its witnesses, so it hasn't had an opportunity cross examine anyone, and the defense has been able to lead because it has only been able to cross examine. Were the prosecutor to call the defendant's wife or mother or something like that, he would probably be permitted to use leading questions. And when the defense puts on its case, the roles will reverse: the defense attorneys will have to use open-ended questioning for any witness he calls, and the prosecutor will be able to use leading questions.
The defence sees the prosecution evidence; witnesses don’t From context, it appears that Ms. DeCoutere was a prosecution witness, not the defendant. As such, she would not be privy to the evidence that either the prosecution or defence had or intended to present. No doubt both the prosecution and the defence would have known about the photograph and, I would imagine, it was introduced by the defence precisely because it contradicted the witness’ testimony. Further, revealing such evidence to her by either side would be misconduct - witnesses are supposed to recount the facts as they recall them without prompting or aide memoirs (police are an exception - they are allowed to refer to their own notebooks).
I virtually never see "without prejudice" used in anything but court documents, unless the writer does not know what he's saying. A typical example would be when a person sues someone, but brings the case in the wrong court. The judge would dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning that the plaintiff could refile somewhere else. In contrast, if the person filed in the correct court, but the judge ruled that the plaintiff had done nothing wrong, the judge would then dismiss the case with prejudice. I believe I have on some occasions seen the phrase used in legal correspondence, perhaps noting, for example, that a party was willing to settle his sexual harassment claim for X amount of money without prejudice to their claims for some unrelated issue. In either event, "without prejudice" is typically referring to the ongoing ability to litigate a claim. I'm not entirely clear on how you're envisioning it being used as e-mail boilerplate, but I can't see any reason to do so. If you did, that would not have any effect on the e-mail's admissibility. EDIT: One other note, because I hadn't looked at it before. The LinkedIn article to which you linked and the comments on it are basically nonsense. Legal advice from a graduate of the "School of Life" is about as valuable as life advice from a graduate of a school of law.
I'm not going to comment on the specifics of this law; rather, I think this question shows a misconception of the way the legal system works in general. Here's the question: do you actually have "legally privileged" material on your phone? If not, what's keeping you from claiming that is that it's not true, and lying to a police officer is a bad idea. And just putting a letter from your lawyer on the phone doesn't mean you've established a legal privilege--attorney-client privilege is not a magic spell, it's a reasonable system of protection that only covers certain communications. The bottom line is: the statute in general, and that clause in particular, were included in the law to protect real, important, and substantial legal right. The courts interpret the law in light of that purpose. If the police officer finds a solution that protects your rights while still carrying out the purpose of the statute, the court will be unlikely to fault him or her. In this case, if you tell the officer that there is a letter from your attorney in a particular folder, the obvious solution is for the officer not to open that folder. Problem solved. In practice, in the United States at least, these cases are dealt with routinely; computers are seized, and attorneys and judges work together to ensure that privilege is protected while still allowing reasonable access to seized materials. I would imagine the same is true in the U.K. The bottom line is: the law is not a game, and technical "gotchas" are rarely effective. Common law systems allow judges enough leeway to avoid this sort of pointless technicality.
How can a person with a similar experience with the defendant, help the plaintiff in a lawsuit? You may bring Joe as witness or present some sworn testimony from him. That could be in the form of affidavit, deposition transcript, or by testifying in court. In what way can I use Joe's story? Joe's testimony will be relevant to the extent that it proves the defendant's pattern of conduct or system for doing a thing. Many (if not all) jurisdictions in the U.S. had a provision similar to Michigan Rule of Evidence 404(b)(1): Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts [...] may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, scheme, plan, or system in doing an act [...] when the same is material, whether [they] are contemporaneous, or prior or subsequent to the conduct at issue in the case. Thus, Joe's testimony would not prove your entire claim, but it can discredit important aspects of defendant's foreseeable denials in your matter. In some way the suggestion in the other answer makes sense, but I would discourage you from bringing suit together with Joe. That is because, despite all similarities, your claim are Joe's claim are different instances: Each cause of action stemmed from a separate contract; each contract/cause involves a different plaintiff; the statute of limitations of each wrong started running at different times; and your history with the defendant might differ from Joe's history with him on relevant aspects in a way that could prejudice you. Furthermore, if the defendant requests that the suits be separated, you and Joe would have no persuasive arguments on why your matters should remain consolidated. Lastly, the mere fact that a complaint is filed by two or more plaintiffs will not prompt a judge to act with honesty or with competence.
A self-represented person, as a practical matter, has no choice but to engage with the court when an oral argument is conducted. A person present in a courtroom likewise has an obligation to acknowledge a judge addressing them. Usually it wouldn't be contemptuous to fail to appear at oral arguments of a fully briefed matter (e.g. a motion for summary judgment, or an appeal), but it would generally be viewed negatively. One could respond to a question from the court with &quot;I don't really have anything more to say, my brief speaks for itself.&quot; And, sometimes a court would leave it at that, but if the court insists there is really no other option than to clarify and explain yourself. Most often, this helps more than hurts a pro se party, although I've certainly seen cases with ghost written pleadings (which are authorized if disclosed in many jurisdictions) where this isn't the case. A fairly common tactic in civil litigation is the take a deposition of a party, or to call a party to the witness stand, and to ask them if they really want the relief that their filed legal documents says that they do, as a way to narrow the scope of the claims brought against the questioning lawyer's client. But, this is less of an issue with a pro se party when the person who drafted the legal documents and the person engaging in oral arguments are the same person. This can't be done in criminal litigation, but I could see a prosecutor trying to do something similar in oral argument, although usually in that context, the judge and not the prosecutor, is asking the questions.
You do not have to. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove that you made the threat. Reasonable doubt exists in the circumstances that you describe, that there are no logs of who accessed what when and how. Your attorney may have to introduce expert witnesses who can explain how it is possible that text from your computer can end up on a web page, and they can testify that there are many ways that data can be entered into the database, only a few of which actually involve you.