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Civil discovery under United States federal law is wide-ranging and can involve any material which is relevant to the case except information which is privileged, information which is the work product of the opposing party, or certain kinds of expert opinions. (Criminal discovery rules may differ from those discussed here.)
In civil cases, the plaintiff can introduce all statements made by the defense, and the defense can enter all statements made by the plaintiff into evidence. The Rules list five circumstances in which an opposing party's statement is admissible as non-hearsay: [11] The statement is offered against an opposing party and:
Civil rights cases concluded in U.S. district courts, by disposition, 1990–2006 [1]. Discovery, in the law of common law jurisdictions, is a phase of pretrial procedure in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from other parties.
In civil cases, the plaintiff presents its case, the defendant presents its case, and the plaintiff may present a rebuttal. Therefore, once the plaintiff has presented its case, the defendant but not the plaintiff can move for JMOL. However, once the defendant has finished presenting its case, both the plaintiff and the defendant can move for JMOL.
Case names are usually given with the plaintiff first, as in Plaintiff v. Defendant (orally, Plaintiff and Defendant). The party against whom the complaint is made is the defendant; or, in the case of a petition, a respondent. Subsequent references to a case may use only one of the names, typically that of the first nongovernmental party. [6]
The next several rules govern jury trials. Rule 47 provides for the selection of jurors and rule 48 governs the number of jurors in a civil case. A civil jury must consist of between six and twelve jurors (six jurors are presently used in the vast majority of federal civil trials; juries of twelve are still required in federal criminal cases).
Character evidence is also admissible in a criminal trial if offered by a defendant as circumstantial evidence—through reputation or opinion evidence—to show an alleged victim's "pertinent" character trait—for example, to support the defendant's claim of self-defense to a charge of homicide.
A plaintiff frequently can choose to file his case in one of several jurisdictions by picking a federal rather than a local jurisdiction, a local rather than federal jurisdiction, or one of several geographic localities. A defendant in a civil case can be sued in a jurisdiction where the defendant resides, or where there are sufficient contacts ...