Trial Evidence

When a trial is held, both sides want to get in as much evidence as they can that they think will convince a jury to see things their way. Over the years, courts have had to grapple with the issue of what a jury should be able to hear and see, and a key job for the judge in a trial is to determine what should be allowed and what should be kept out.

Eventually, sets of rules were developed to guide judges as they decided issues of evidence. In North Carolina, the rules are written out in Chapter 8C of the General Statutes.

Evidence for a trial might consist of eyewitness testimony, a document or set of documents, three-dimensional objects, audio or video recordings of some kind, or other things that can help tell the story of what happened.

Very often, before a trial, the attorneys will stipulate, or agree, that certain kinds of evidence will be allowed without objection. When there is really no argument that the evidence should be heard or seen, this helps shorten the trial and makes the process smoother for everyone. However, sometimes attorneys for one side or the other would rather that certain critical bits of evidence not be seen by the jury.

If someone objects to any evidence being used at trial, then the judge must use the rules as a guideline to decide whether the jury should see or hear it. One initial threshold for the evidence to pass is whether it is 'relevant' to the issues being tried. In other words, would it make any difference to the outcome of the case whether the evidence is heard or not. Sometimes, the answer is pretty obvious but other times, it can get fairly tricky.

Some other factors a judge must consider when deciding whether to allow evidence include:

a. whether there is some special reason it cannot be allowed (such as sensitive state secrets);
b whether the witness is 'competent' (old enough and mentally alert enough to understand what he or she saw, or really has sufficient personal knowledge, for example);
c. whether the evidence is 'hearsay'. (This is a difficult concept, even for lawyers and judges sometimes, but generally hinges on whether the witness is testifying to what somebody else said.);
d. whether the witness has enough education and experience to talk about technical evidence that is being presented or to give opinions about technical matters;
e. whether a document or object is the genuine article.

Since the evidence a jury gets to see and hear can make or break a case, attorneys often appeal the juge's decision to a higher court. The Court of Appeals must decide first whether the trial judge's decision had a potentially significant effect on the outcome of the trial, and then whether the decision was correct or not.