Jules Epstein

July 01, 2020 | The Legal Intelligencer

The word "race" is absent from the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the hearsay rules, for example, are arguably colorblind—a present sense impression is a present sense impression, with its admissibility in now way dependent upon the race of the declarant or the perceiver.

By Jules Epstein

7 minute read

May 14, 2020 | The Legal Intelligencer

Too often, the mindset in negotiating is completely adversarial—we are good, they are bad; we are right, they are wrong; we are just and they are unjust; and, perhaps most perniciously, we are reasonable and they are not and will not be so.

By Jules Epstein

5 minute read

March 25, 2020 | The Legal Intelligencer

The dangers of limiting instructions are clear—they sometimes exacerbate the impact of the problematic proof, yet we teach Rule 105 as a fix to almost all risky evidence and then proceed under the myth that jurors will follow them to the "t."

By Jules Epstein

5 minute read

January 22, 2020 | The Legal Intelligencer

According to a September 2019 ruling, the "may" finding is the limit. "The government's expert may testify that based on his examination, the recovered firearm cannot be excluded as the source of the cartridge casing found on the scene of the alleged shooting."

By Jules Epstein

5 minute read

December 27, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

Pennsylvania remains a Frye jurisdiction, with the threshold for expert discipline evidence being whether it has "general acceptance." The goal is to let the specialists—those in the discipline who presumably know best—tell the courts what is reliable; and once that is resolved the issue is not to be revisited.

By Jules Epstein

7 minute read

November 15, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

The testimony—putting aside the concern over remoteness—is permissible in Pennsylvania. The commonwealth's evidence rules specifically allow proof of acts—whether there was a conviction, the act was charged criminally or the incident as just alleged.

By Jules Epstein

6 minute read

September 10, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

Pennsylvania race was and remains a thumb on the capital case scales—in the decision of who faces the death penalty; in the selection of jurors and in jurors' ultimate decision of whether to vote for death.

By Jules Epstein

4 minute read

May 30, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

The dilemma is simple, the law is growing more complex. A prosecutor wants to tell a rich and complete story, and asks the officer or detective how or why a suspect came to be arrested, or even how a person became the focus of police scrutiny or came to be in a photo array.

By Jules Epstein

7 minute read

May 01, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

In upholding the admission of the note found in the planner, the Pennsylvania Superior Court demonstrated, yet again, that the “state of mind” exception to the ban on hearsay, that found in Pennsylvania Rule of Evidence 803(3), is all-too-often misunderstood or misapplied.

By Jules Epstein

6 minute read

March 15, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

In a trial, or in a Congressional hearing, it is fair to test a witness' credibility. Congress has no rules of evidence—but those applied at trial are informative and help the discussion of whether Cohen's having girlfriends while married is fair game.

By Jules Epstein

4 minute read