TTTBE #41: Early Answer for Patrons!
Added 2017-09-18 00:34:41 +0000 UTCThe question asked whether, in a murder investigation where the police found a left shoe imprint at the crime scene, the right shoe found at the defendant's house would be admissible as evidence.
This question tested your knowledge of direct versus circumstantial evidence. I thought it was pretty easy, and most people who played along got the answer correct, including Thomas. It was "B" -- that the right shoe is admissible as circumstantial evidence.
The difference between circumstantial and direct evidence is whether the evidence requires you to draw an inference to support the crime or not. So things like confessions and eyewitness testimony are direct evidence; something like this would be circumstantial. That eliminates answer "A."
Answer "C" (that the shoe is "irrelevant") is way off; remember that the Federal Rules of Evidence define relevance very broadly. Almost nothing is "irrelevant" to a case, although not all relevant evidence is admissible.
Finally, answer "D" is what I thought might be an attractive distractor -- it postulates that in order to have admissible footprint evidence, the prosecutor authenticate both shoes and the shoeprints. That'd be a neat rule, but it isn't the law, so that answer was also wrong.
Congratulations continue to be in order to Thomas, who has now gotten an amazing nine in a row correct and is currently at 24-for-41 (58.5%) overall!
