Your Rights
Most individual rights are found in these
What are the first 10 amendments?
This writ allows people to challenge government custody or imprisonment. It is issued by a court and directed to a government official, such as a prison warden, to appear before the court and show cause why the person seeking the petition is being held.
What is a WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS?
This may be challenged if the witness shows bias, if they lack the opportunity to observe, or if they made prior inconsistent statements.
What is WITNESS CREDIBILITY or CREDIBILITY OF A WITNESS?
This type of privilege is meant to encourage full communication between patients and physicians, and states that conversations between a doctor and his/her patients are confidential. This privilege is created by state statute.
What is PHYSICIAN-PATIENT PRIVILEGE?
This type of evidence proves a fact without the need to draw inferences or conclusions.
What is DIRECT EVIDENCE?
This type of evidence is minute or microscopic bits of materials that are not immediately apparent to even a trained investigator.
What is TRACE EVIDENCE?
This Amendment gives defendants a right to a speedy and public trial. It also grants rights to counsel, to subpoena witnesses, to confront and cross-examine witnesses and to be informed of the charges.
What is the 6th Amendment?
This process requires a criminal complaint, an arrest warrant, an initial appearance, a preliminary hearing (if Felony), a Grand Jury review/possible indictment, and an Arraignment on the indictment or formal charge.
What is the CRIMINAL COURT PROCESS?
These types of witnesses are NOT allowed to give their opinions. They must limit their testimony to the facts.
What is a LAY WITNESS?
This privilege has been created in a number of states, supporting the confidentiality that exists between confidential sources and the press/media under the First Amendment.
What is JOURNALIST PRIVILEGE?
This type of evidence is indirect; it proves the fact to be useful in drawing inferences or conclusions.
What is CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE?
This rule affects the admissibility of documents, writings, recordings and photographs. It states that ONLY AN ORIGINAL of the document is admissible. Copies are not admissible unless an exception applies.
What is the BEST EVIDENCE RULE?
This Amendment grants a privilege against self-incrimination.
What is the 5th Amendment?
These agreements are between defendants and prosecutors in which defendants agree to plead guilty to some or all of the charges against them in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. Because of this concept, only about 8% of criminal cases go to trial.
What is PLEA BARGAINING?
This type of witness is a person who has had special training, education or experience. They may be able to assist the jury and the court in resolving the issues before them.
What is an EXPERT WITNESS?
Under this type of privilege, the government does not need to reveal the identity of confidential informants. It is understood, however, that courts may order that the identity of an informant be revealed when necessary to protect important Constitutional rights of defendants.
What is GOVERNMENTAL PRIVILEGE?
This consists of the materials, testimony, exhibits, etc that are presented to the trier of fact (Judge in a bench trial or jury in a jury trial) in an attempt to prove something.
What is EVIDENCE?
This is the test/principle that the validity of scientific evidence should be assessed according to specific criteria, including: Has the theory been tested/Has it been subjected to peer review/What is the known or potential rate of error/Do standards controlling the application of the theory exist?/Is the theory generally accepted?
What is the DAUBERT TEST?
This Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and establishes minimum requirements for warrants.
What is the 4th Amendment?
This standard of proof must be surpassed in order to convict an accused in a criminal proceeding. In a criminal case, the burden of proof is on the prosecution in order to prove this standard.
What is REASONABLE DOUBT or GUILT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT?
This is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. This can involve oral or written statements.
It is when a witness does not testify to what they personally saw or heard but rather testify as to what someone else told them.
What is HEARSAY?
This is a test originally formulated to evaluate whether a defendant's constitutional rights were violated in the elicitation of a confession. It concentrates on looking at the alleged violation as a WHOLE, rather than on only one or two aspects.
What is TOTALITY OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES TEST?
This notice is a rule in the law of evidence or device that allows a fact to be introduced into evidence if the truth of that fact is so well known, or so authoritatively attested, that it cannot reasonably be doubted. Matters subject to this type of notice must be matters of knowledge, facts obtained from reliable records and sources, or scientific and technical facts.
What is JUDICIAL NOTICE?
This type of testing has become an important forensic tool for linking suspects to a crime.
What is DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid)?
These rules can be thought of as the GATES through which information passes to the judge and jury in a courtroom. They also help protect the rights of the accused, as well as the public interest in seeking justice.
What are RULES OF EVIDENCE?
This rule is an EXCEPTION to the hearsay rule that allows the acts and statements of one conspirator, as long as they were said during or in furtherance of the conspiracy. NOTE! The Federal Rule of Evidence, 801(d)(2)(E) provides these statements are NOT hearsay.
What is the CO-CONSPIRATOR RULE?
The use of hearsay raises THIS concern. It can implicate a defendant's 6th Amendment right to confront and cross-examine witnesses. The person making the statement was not under oath and cannot be observed or cross-examined, causing a risk of misperception, faulty memory, misstatement or distortion.
What is RELIABILITY?
For the purposes of Miranda, this is the formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of a person.
What is CUSTODY?
This important rule states that evidence obtained IN VIOLATION OF A DEFENDANT'S RIGHTS under the US Constitution is generally NOT admissible at trial to prove guilt. In 1914, the US Supreme Court made the rule mandatory in Federal court (Weeks v. US), and in 1961, the Court made the rule mandatory in state courts (Mapp v. Ohio)
What is the EXCLUSIONARY RULE?
Microscopic analysis of the unique marks left by the rifle or gun barrel on a bullet fragment in order to identify the weapon that fired it.
What is BALLISTIC FINGERPRINTING?
These are the three REQUIREMENTS for evidentiary admissibility. They are required in order for real evidence to be admitted at trial.
What are RELEVANCE, MATERIALITY, and COMPETENCE?
This clause in the US Constitution entitles a defendant in a criminal case to demand witnesses to testify against him in his presence.
What is the CONFRONTATION CLAUSE?
Things like excited utterances, mental/physical/emotional conditions, statements made for medical diagnosis/treatment, regularly kept records, dying declarations and statements against penal interest may all be THESE to the hearsay rule.
What are EXCEPTIONS?
This is a principle that an attempt to elicit incriminating statements from a suspect whose right to counsel has attached, but how has not waived that right violates the 6th Amendment (Right to Counsel).
What is the MASSIAH RULE?
This exception permits the use of evidence obtained through the use of a search warrant containing a TECHNICAL ERROR that does not violate a fundamental Constitutional right of a suspect
What is THE GOOD FAITH EXCEPTION?
This rule requires the government to disclose evidence suggesting the defendant is innocent.
What is the BRADY RULE?
This rule held that a defendant's confrontation clause rights are violated when a non-testifying co-defendant's confession naming the defendant as a participant in the crime is introduced at their joint trial.
What is the BRUTON RULE?
This type of identification of a suspect is POWERFUL EVIDENCE, but research shows that it can be frequently unreliable due to the limitations of the human brain.
What is EYEWITNESS IDENTIFICATION?
In this 1968 case in Ohio, the court ruled that the 4th Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him/her without probable cause to arrest....IF the officer has REASONABLE SUSPICION that a person has committed, is commiting or is about to commit a crime and also has reasonable belief that the person 'may be armed and presently dangerous.'
What is TERRY v. OHIO?
This exception to the search warrant requirement means that immediate action is necessary by police to prevent physical harm or death or great bodily harm to the officer or the public, to prevent the immediate destruction of evidence, or to prevent escape.
What is EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES?
Evidence can be obtained through this method, where an officer can clearly see contraband/evidence and no 4th Amendment protection exists.
What is PLAIN VIEW?
If the government can show that it would undoubtedly have obtained the evidence later through means independent of any constitutional violation, this exception says that the evidence does not have to be excluded.
What is the INEVITABLE DISCOVERY EXCEPTION?
In this kind of suspect identification technique, there is a one-on-one confrontation between the suspect and the witness. To pass court muster, this must generally take place shortly after the crime.
What is a SHOW UP?
This 2009 US Supreme Court case states that an arrest of a person from a vehicle does NOT automatically allow the officer to search the vehicle incident to that arrest. This case requires that officers demonstrate a threat to their safety or a need to preserve evidence related to a crime in order to justify a warantless vehicle search after the vehicle's recent occupants have been arrested and secured.
What is ARIZONA v. GANT?
Nighttime, 'no-knock', anticipatory, 'Sneak-and-Peek' and Administrative are all types of this.
What is a SEARCH WARRANT?
This type of suspect identification involves a group of suspects with similar appearances being viewed by the witness.
What is a LINE UP?
This doctrine came out of a 1925 case. It permits an officer to search an entire motor vehicle and any containers inside if there is PROBABLE CAUSE to believe that the vehicle contains contraband or the fruits, instrumentalities or evidence of criminal activity.
What is the CARROLL DOCTRINE?
This means connecting a concealed listening or recording device connected to a communications circuit.
What is a WIRETAP? (WIRETAPPING)
This type of suspect identification involves officers showing the victim/witness a number of photographs of persons.
What is a PHOTO ARRAY?
This doctrine says that the government must show that events occurring between the unconstitutional police conduct and obtaining the evidence have weakened or attenuated the casual connection between the police misconduct and obtaining the evidence.
What is the ATTENUATION OF THE TAINT DOCTRINE?
This term refers to a record of HOW and WHERE the evidence was kept or handled and by whom BETWEEN THE TIME IT WAS SEIZED at the crime scene and its presentation in court.
What is the CHAIN OF CUSTODY?