On this episode, host Paul W. Grimm, a retired federal judge and director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law, and Professor Dan Capra, the Reed Professor of Law at Fordham University and a reporter for the Advisory Committee of the Federal  Rules of Evidence, discuss the 2023 amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence 106, 615, and 702. Their conversation highlights how even subtle revisions to the rules can significantly improve the fairness of court proceedings.

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• This episode was recorded before the Dec. 1, 2023, deadline for Congress to act before the amendments would go into effect. Congress did not act to modify or prevent the rules from going into effect, so they have all since entered the Federal Rules of Evidence.
• Some listeners may find it helpful to review the original rules along with changes. This blog by Melinda Burton, attorney at the firm Faruki PLLC, highlights the revisions that went into effect.
• In 2020, Professor Capra published the article "Evidentiary Irony and the Incomplete Rule of Completeness: A Proposal to Amend Federal Rule of Evidence 106"  co-authored with Professor Liesa L. Richter in the Minnesota Law Review. In 2021, Professor Capra and Professor Richter published the article "The" Rule: Modernizing the Potent, But Overlooked, Rule of Witness Sequestration in the William & Mary Law Review.

ABOUT THE HOST

Judge Paul W. Grimm (ret.) is the David F. Levi Professor of the Practice of Law and Director of the Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law School. From December 2012 until his retirement in December 2022, he served as a district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, with chambers in Greenbelt, Maryland. Click here to read his full bio.