User:Justin36131/sandbox

History
The United States Supreme Court circulated drafts of the FRE in 1969, 1971 and 1972, but Congress then exercised its power under the Rules Enabling Act to suspend implementation of the FRE until it could study them further. After a long delay blamed on the Watergate scandal, the FRE became federal law on January 2, 1975, when President Ford signed An Act to Establish Rules of Evidence for Certain Courts and Proceedings, Pub.L.  93–595, 88 Stat. 1926.

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While reviewing the Federal Rules of Evidence, Congress decided that privileges should be determined by individual state laws as stated in Rule 501. All other matters in terms of evidence will be determined by the Federal Rules of Evidence unless state law has stricter requirements for a witness. The Federal Rules of Evidence in general are more supreme than state law unless a certain part of the Federal Rules of Evidence is deemed unconstitutional.

The law was enacted only after Congress made a series of modifications to the proposed rules. Much of the debate on the Rules stemmed from concerns that came to lawmakers' attention due to the Watergate scandal, particularly questions of privilege. Some of the most prominent congressional amendments when Congress adopted the rules included:

Structure
Essentially testimony about an act a person has committed in the past is not admissible for the purposes of showing it is more likely that they committed the same act, however it could be admissible for another purpose, such as knowledge or lack of mistake. For example, in a DUI case, the prosecutor may not admit evidence of a prior instance of driving impaired to show that the defendant acted in conformity and drove impaired on the day he is charged with doing so. However such evidence may be admissible if the defense has argued the defendant had no knowledge driving impaired was a crime. Evidence of his prior arrest, conviction, or other circumstances surrounding his prior instance of impaired driving then becomes admissible to rebut the claim of "mistake." The testimony is now being offered not for conformity but to demonstrate knowledge or lack of mistake.

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While prior crimes committed may not be used to establish guilt, multiple federal and state courts have concluded that Rule 404 applies to an expert witness. For example, a doctor's prior malpractice may not be used as evidence to deny said doctor's qualification to be an expert witness even though the doctor is not on trail.

Other common-law concepts with previously amorphous limits have been more clearly delineated. This is especially true regarding hearsay evidence. Among scholars and in historical judicial decisions, four related definitions of "hearsay" emerged, and the various exceptions and exemptions flowed from the particular definition preferred by the scholar or court. The Federal Rules of Evidence settled on one of these four definitions and then fixed the various exceptions and exemptions in relation to the preferred definition of hearsay.

The scope of the privileges under the Rules thus is the subject of federal common law, except in those situations where state law supplies the rule to be applied. Accordingly, the Supreme Court is ultimately responsible for determining which privileges exist. In the years since the adoption of the Rules, the Court has both expressly adopted a privilege, in Jaffee v. Redmond, 518 U.S. 1 (1996), and expressly declined to adopt a privilege, in University of Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U.S. 182 (1990).

When it comes to the FRE 106, under Adams, if a party seeks to enter into evidence additional parts of the writing or recording, the additional parts need not be "admissible" (i.e. comport with the other rules of evidence).

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Rules 702 and 703 deal with how expert witnesses may be used to provide evidence and expert opinions. In 1923, the methodology of judging expert testimony was determined by the Supreme Court Case Frye v. U.S. . Evidence was determined to be reliable if the scientific community agreed that the evidence is reliable which means the power to determine what evidence is admissible in court essentially rests on the scientific community not the judge. When the Federal Rules of Evidence was first passed into law, Rule 702 only required that the expert opinion offered be relevant to the case. It was not until Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. that the Supreme Court ruled that judges have the power to determine whether certain kinds of expert testimony are admissible but only for scientific expert testimony. Daubert ruled that expert opinion must be testable, peer reviewed, have a known potential error, and accepted generally by the scientific community unlike Frye where the only criterion is that the opinion is generally accepted by the scientific community. The 1999 Supreme Court Case Kumho Tire Company v. Carmichael would later rule that this power applies to all expert testimony, "scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge". The Supreme Court also ruled that it is to the judge's discretion whether the criteria that Daubert offered be adhered strictly or be treated as a guide. In December 2000, the Advisory Committee made an amendment to Rule 702 to include the Daubert ruling that gave judges the power to determine whether an expert testimony is admissible. The amendment stated that for expert testimony to be admissible, "(1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case".