• Justice requires lawyers to abide by the laws of evidence.Justice image by MVit from Fotolia.com
  
  The Federal Rules of Evidence was proposed by the Supreme Court and became effective on July 1, 1975. The Federal Rules of Evidence pertain to testimony as well as exhibits used in a legal proceeding. Some evidence can be excluded from a trial even if it has followed all the rules if the trial judge deems the evidence unfair to the defendant, but the purpose of evidence obtained while adhering to the Federal Rules of Evidence is to use it in either the conviction or acquittal of a suspect.
  
  

General Rules

• Each piece of evidence can potentially be objected to. This process allows either side in a court case the chance to remove a piece of evidence from the pending court case. Evidence can be assigned a predetermined scope which limits how the jury can view the admitted evidence.
  
  

Relevance

• Any piece of relevant evidence is admissible into a court proceeding. Only evidence which is objected to or declared not relevant will be inadmissible. Some evidence, even if it is relevant, can be excluded from a case because it confuses the issues at stake or is unfairly prejudicial to a defendant.
  
  

Attorney-Client Privilege

• Only information which is disclosed purposefully after signing a waiver is admissible if the attorney-client privilege is used. The attorney-client privilege is meant to protect a defendant and her attorney from prosecution based on the shared information between the two parties. When an attorney inadvertently shares this private information, it cannot be used as evidence.
  
  

Witnesses and Experts

• Witnesses need to have personal knowledge of the matter in order to provide a statement to be used as evidence. Witnesses can testify only after taking an oath to do so truthfully. The credibility of a witness is usually attacked by the opposing council.
  
  Testimony of an expert is used to understand evidence or to give opinions based on his qualifications. The court has the right to appoint its own experts if deemed necessary for the clarification of evidence. Experts are the only witnesses who may give their opinion as part of the evidence in a case.
  
  

Hearsay

• When a statement is repeated by someone other than the actual person who said the statement, it is considered hearsay. Hearsay is usually not allowed into court. However, some types of hearsay may be admissible, including statements describing how a person perceived an event, reporting excited statements made by the person in question, medical diagnosis statements and recorded recollections.
  
  

Original Documentation

• Any photos, written documents or tape recordings which are to be admitted into evidence should be the originals. No photocopies are acceptable as evidence as there is no way to determine if any tampering has happened. Official photocopies are sometimes used in the courtroom with the originals remaining in evidence or if the original was not able to be moved to the courtroom. A duplicate is only admissible if both the prosecution and defense agree it is an authentic copy of the original document.