Evidence bar exam questions & notes.

A jewelry store is robbed at gunpoint, and the State charges a former employee named Boyd. At trial, the prosecutor offers evidence that on the morning after the robbery Boyd bought a one-way bus ticket to another state using a false name and had shaved off his distinctive beard. Boyd objects that fleeing and changing his appearance prove nothing, because innocent people often panic and run when they fear being blamed for a crime they did not commit.

Is the evidence of Boyd’s flight and change of appearance relevant?

1. Yes, because it has some tendency to show a consciousness of guilt. Correct
2. No, because innocent people sometimes flee, so the evidence fails to prove that he robbed the store.
3. No, because evidence of flight is never enough to sustain a conviction on its own.
4. Yes, because fleeing the state after a crime conclusively establishes the fleeing person’s guilt.

A plaintiff sues a delivery company after one of its vans rear-ended her car at a stoplight. To prove the van driver was at fault, the plaintiff offers evidence that the driver collects vintage postage stamps and once won a regional collectors’ award for his stamp album. The company objects that the hobby has nothing to do with the crash. Liability turns solely on whether the driver followed too closely and braked too late; nothing in the case concerns the driver’s pastimes.

Is the evidence about the driver’s stamp-collecting relevant?

1. Yes, because a detailed hobby helps the jury understand what kind of person the driver is.
2. Yes, because any true fact about a party to the lawsuit is relevant background information.
3. No, because it has no tendency to prove any fact that is of consequence to the case. Correct
4. No, because the danger of confusing the issues substantially outweighs its probative value.

A warehouse burns to the ground and the owner sues an electrician, alleging that faulty wiring the electrician installed started the fire. No witness saw flames erupt from the wiring itself. Instead, the owner offers a fire investigator who will testify that the charring was deepest at the electrical panel and that scorch marks fanned outward from that point across the walls. The electrician argues the burn-pattern testimony is irrelevant because nobody actually observed the wiring ignite.

Is the burn-pattern testimony relevant?

1. No, because only direct evidence of ignition can establish the cause of a fire.
2. Yes, because it tends to prove the fire’s origin through a reasonable inference. Correct
3. No, because circumstantial evidence carries less legal weight than eyewitness testimony.
4. Yes, but only if the investigator first rules out every other conceivable cause of the fire.

During a contract dispute over a shipment of lumber, one party offers a relevant email in which the other side’s manager admitted the boards were the wrong grade. The opponent concedes the email is relevant to a disputed issue but argues that being relevant is not by itself enough to make the email admissible, and urges the judge to consider whether some other rule of evidence might still keep it out. The judge agrees the email bears directly on the quality dispute.

Which statement best describes the effect of the email being relevant?

1. Being relevant guarantees the email’s admission no matter what other rules provide.
2. Because it is relevant, the email is admissible unless some other rule excludes it. Correct
3. Relevance is beside the point; only the hearsay and privilege rules decide admissibility.
4. The email is inadmissible unless its proponent shows it is more probative than prejudicial.