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36 Rev. Litig. 529 (2017-2018)
Is Evidence Obsolete

handle is hein.journals/rol36 and id is 567 raw text is: Is Evidence Obsolete? Katharine Traylor Schaffzin* I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 529 II. THE PURPOSE OF THE FEDERAL RULES OF EVIDENCE .......... 531 III. LITIGATION TRENDS .............................................................. 532 IV. EVIDENCE RULES ARE RIPE FOR REFORM ............................. 538 A. Article I: General Provisions ......................................... 540 B. Article II: Judicial N otice ............................................... 548 C. Article III: Presumptions in Civil Cases ........................ 548 D . Article IV : Relevancy .................................................... 549 E. A rticle V : Privileges ...................................................... 559 F. A rticle V I: W itnesses ..................................................... 560 G. Article VII: Opinions & Expert Testimony ................... 567 H . A rticle V III: H earsay ..................................................... 570 I. Article IX: Authentication &-Identification ................... 574 J. Article X: Contents of Writings, Recordings, & Photographs .................................................................... 576 K. Article XI: Miscellaneous Rules .................................... 577 V . C ONCLU SION ......................................................................... 578 I. INTRODUCTION Even before the Federal Rules of Evidence were first proposed in 1969, the incidence of federal cases going to trial had commenced a precipitous and steady decline. While Congress debated these rules, alternative forums for resolving disputes were just being introduced into modem litigation. One must ask why a need for alternative forums existed at the very time a uniform federal evidentiary code was * Katharine Traylor Schaffzin is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a Professor at the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. She is grateful for the support of the Law School, especially that of Dean Peter Letsou, Professor Demetria Frank, and Professor Daniel M. Schaffzin. Special thanks go to Professor Paul Radvany, Ken Kandaras, Morris Ratner, and the Litigation Section of the Association of American Law Schools for their excellent panel on the question of whether evidence is obsolete at the 2016 AALS Annual Meeting. Finally, this article would not have been possible without the thorough and efficient research assistance of Garrett Haynes.

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