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Witness impeachment, in the law of evidence of the United States, is the process of calling into question the credibility of an individual testifying in a trial. The Federal Rules of Evidence contain the rules governing impeachment in US federal courts.
In the majority of U.S. jurisdictions, prior inconsistent statements may not be introduced to prove the truth of the prior statement itself, as this constitutes hearsay, but only to impeach the credibility of the witness. However, under Federal Rule of Evidence 801 and the minority of U.S. jurisdictions that have adopted this rule, a prior ...
The decision in Morlang has been adopted as a standard for identifying abuse of Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 607, which allows the party calling a witness to impeach that witness's credibility. [6] The Morlang standard was followed by the D.C. Circuit in the case United States v. Johnson [7] and by the Ninth Circuit in the case United States v.
The rule excluding hearsay arises from a concern regarding the statement's reliability. Courts have four principal concerns with the reliability of witness statements: the witness may be lying (sincerity risk), the witness may have misunderstood the situation (narration risk), the witness's memory may be wrong (memory risk), and the witness's perception was inaccurate (perception risk). [8]
[18] Judge Posner argued that because witnesses "are prone to fudge, to fumble, to misspeak, to misstate, to exaggerate", few trials would reach a judgment if "any such pratfall warranted disbelieving a witness's entire testimony." [19] Additionally, evidence scholar John Henry Wigmore was an outspoken critic of the doctrine. [20]
The attorney said the records were what is known as Brady evidence, or evidence the prosecutor is required to disclose under this rule, which includes any information favorable to the accused ...
Following Brady, the prosecutor must disclose evidence or information that would prove the innocence of the defendant or would enable the defense to more effectively impeach the credibility of government witnesses. Evidence that would serve to reduce the defendant's sentence must also be disclosed by the prosecution.
The report, which cites witness testimony, financial records, and text message exchanges, found that Gaetz violated Florida law and House ethics rules while he was a member of Congress, and ...