In this new edition, Arthur Best retains the features and the quality that made this E&E the bestselling evidence ancillary. The author:
- provides clear explanations of all of the topics that students find difficult, including relevance, hearsay, and impeachment
- presents key concepts in tables and charts for easy reference
- supplies questions with varying degrees of difficulty and provides clear explanations of the analysis of those questions
- designs each chapter so it includes all of the material necessary to answer the questions, providing students with an incentive to read chapters thoroughly
- provides an appendix with a "plain language" version of the Federal Rules of Evidence, complete with new amendments to the Rules
The Sixth Edition:
- covers changes in Confrontation Clause analysis, reflecting Crawford v. Washington and Davis v. Washington
- reflects the 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence which clarify that character evidence to show propensity is totally barred in a civil case even if the circumstances are similar to those of a criminal case; change Rule 408 governing use of statements made in settlement negotiations, prohibiting their use for impeachment by contradiction or prior inconsistent statement, and allowing the use in criminal cases of statements made to government agents during settlement negotiations related to a civil case; tighten the prohibition in Rule 606(b) against juror testimony about errors in verdicts (allowing testimony only about mistakes in entering a verdict on a verdict form); treat a crime, for purposes of Rule 609, as involving dishonesty or false statement only if it can readily be determined thatestablishing the elements of the crime required proof or admission of an act of dishonesty or false statement