I plan on posting in other relevant subs as well. When a judge disallows potential evidence as being more punitive than probative, how is that a thing? If there is proof or a fact that could help determine a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, why would you ever not let that into evidence? “Too punitive”, isn’t that the point?
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The rules of evidence are concerned with constitutional rights and reliability. Constitutional rights means that the government doesn’t have the legal power to obtain the evidence in the first place.
Constitutional rights tend to be concerning very strong evidence – confessions, stuff seized from homes / cars, informants who don’t want to testify in person
Reliability rules make it more difficult to introduce false testimony, false physical evidence or false science. The idea is that if someone botches chain of custody, there’s no longer any proof that the coke is in fact the coke from the case the person is charged with carrying.
Reliability also covers “man this guy is a scumbag” because “this guy is a scumbag” is not in fact part of the crime charged.
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