by Ahazi Wetunde

Created on: March 14, 2011

The question of how the relevance or irrelevance of evidence is to be determined has been the subject of a vast amount of discussion in the last 100 to 200 years. There is now a consensus among legal scholars and judges in the U.S. that the relevance or irrelevance of evidence cannot be determined by syllogistic reasoning – if/then logic – alone. There is also general agreement that assessment of relevance or irrelevance involves or requires judgments about probabilities or uncertainties. Beyond that, there is little agreement. Many legal scholars and judges agree that ordinary reasoning, or common sense reasoning, plays an important role. There is less agreement about whether or not judgments of relevance or irrelevance are defensible only if the reasoning that supports such judgments is made fully explicit. However, most trial judges would reject any such requirement and would say that some judgments can and must rest partly on unarticulated and articulable hunches and intuitions. However, there is general (though implicit) agreement that the relevance of at least some types of expert evidence – particularly evidence from the hard sciences – requires particularly rigorous or in any event more arcane reasoning than is usually needed or expected. There is a general agreement that judgments of relevance are largely within the discretion of the trial court – although relevance rulings that lead to the exclusion of evidence are more likely to be reversed on appeal than are relevance rulings that lead to the admission of evidence.

In systems of proof based on the English common law tradition, almost all evidence must be sponsored by a witness, who has sworn or solemnly affirmed to tell the truth. The bulk of the law of evidence regulates the types of evidence that may be sought from witnesses and the manner in which the interrogation of witnesses is conducted such as during direct examination and cross-examination of witnesses. Other types of evidentiary rules specify the standards of persuasion (e.g., proof beyond a reasonable doubt) that a trier of fact - whether judge or jury - must apply when it assesses evidence.

Today all persons are presumed to be qualified to serve as witnesses in trials and other legal proceedings, and all persons are also presumed to have a legal obligation to serve as witnesses if their testimony is sought. However, legal rules sometimes exempt people from the obligation to give

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