'The Future Ain't What It Used to Be': New Developments in Evidence for the 2005 Term of Court

摘要

Relevance is at the conceptual core of the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) and the Military Rules of Evidence (MRE). As expressed in Rules 401, 402, and 403, evidence that is logically relevant is admissible at trial, unless other rules prohibit its admission or its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice or other damage to the fact-finding process. What seems simple on its face, however, is often complicated by caselaw interpretations that expand or contract the limits of relevance according to the philosophical preferences of appellate judges. The strongest evidentiary trend in the 2005 term of court was the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces' (CAAF) struggle to establish the boundaries of logical and legal relevance in trials by court-martial. The CAAF wrestled with issues involving the basic definition of logical relevance, the limits of legal relevance, and whether specific evidentiary prohibitions should prevent logically relevant evidence from being admitted at trial. The CAAF appears to be ideologically fractured and inconsistent on issues of relevance, making it very difficult for practitioners and military judges to apply the plain language of the MRE in making admissibility determinations.