When lawyers use words and phrases that are not accompanied by imagery, they cede the power of their efforts to the individual jurors who may hear the words in different ways. Adding a visual component increases the ability to convey true meaning. Stephen P. Lindsay offers creative ideas that allow defense lawyers to show a juror what they mean, and his ideas will not break the bank.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is pleased to submit our comments with respect to the proposed changes in the Federal Rules of Evidence.

for Criminal Defendants

Wholesale destruction of communications evidence on agents’ cellphones and elsewhere is something that criminal defendants and their lawyers face with shocking regularity.

Brief of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae in Support of Petitioner.

Argument: Both federal appellate courts and state courts of last resort have inconsistently decided whether the Fourth Amendment protects social guests from unreasonable searches when they visit a home but do not spend the night. In the decision below, the New York Court of Appeals widened this split by ruling that a social guest who [*5] visited for dinner, but did not stay the night, did not have standing to challenge the search of his host's home. See People v. Ibarguen, 37 N.Y.3d 1107, 1107-08 (2021). The inconsistent application of the Fourth Amendment [*6] to social guests also degrades the efficacy of the exclusionary rule in providing clear standards for police conduct and concomitant deterrence of police misconduct by making it difficult to institutionalize uniform practices and compliance through widely-used training materials.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers opposes the proposed amendment to Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(A). The amendment would permit the substantive use of unsworn and presumptively unreliable out-of-court statements. The amendment would thus mark a sharp break with other exceptions to the hearsay rule, which generally require circumstantial assurances of reliability. There is no identified need that would justify such a striking impingement on the trial's truth-seeking function.

This month Cara Wieneke reviews Scrapped: Justice and a Teen Informant by Lisa Peebles and John O’Brien.

This month Cuauhtemoc Ortega reviews A Defender’s Guide to Federal Evidence: A Trial Practice Handbook for Criminal Defense Attorneys by Rene L. Valladares.

The Busy Lawyer’s Guide to Hearsay Part II presented by Rene Valladares

The Busy Lawyer’s Guide to Hearsay Part I presented by Rene Valladares

The Busy Lawyer’s Guide to Character Evidence and Impeachment Part I presented by Rene Valladares

The Busy Lawyer’s Guide to Character Evidence and Impeachment Part II presented by Rene Valladares

Defense attorney Rauch Wise says that if the criminal legal system is going to honor the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, the system must do a better job of pointing out the importance of heighten scrutiny in cases involving circumstantial evidence. To prove a circumstantial evidence case, he writes, jurors must be informed that there can be no reasonable explanation other than the guilt of the defendant. Jurors must understand that the government has the obligation to eliminate any other reasonable explanations.

Holding Law Enforcement Accountable by Expediting the Review of Body-Camera Footage, Jail Calls, and Other Digital Discovery presented by Devshi Mehrotra, CEO and co-founder, JusticeText; and Jonathan Cable, Oregon defense attorney

Comments to the Judicial Conference of the United States Practice & Procedure Committee regarding proposed amendments to Federal Rules of Evidence 106, 615, and 702.

Misunderstood & Underused: The Rules of Evidence You're Missing Pt II [Engage & Exchange Discussion] (featuring Cheryl D. Stein)