Relevance & 403 — NextGen Bar practice question

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?

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

Why

Rule 401 sets a famously low bar: evidence is relevant if it has any tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable. Flight under a false name and a hurried change of appearance have some tendency to show a guilty conscience, which bears on whether Boyd committed the robbery, so the evidence clears Rule 401 (A). B and C make the same error from different angles — they demand that the evidence prove guilt or be sufficient to convict, but relevance never requires sufficiency; a brick is not a wall, and the innocent explanations Boyd offers go to weight for the jury, not admissibility. D overstates in the opposite direction: flight is not conclusive proof of anything, and relevance does not require certainty. The evidence is a legitimate building block, which is all Rule 401 demands.

Why