Excited Utterance

Originalism and Historical Fact-Finding. Joseph Blocher from Duke Law School explores how courts should determine the historical facts used for originalist interpretations of the Constitution, and whether those procedures should better mirror the ones the legal system traditionally uses at trial.

The Dignitary Confrontation Clause. Erin Sheley from California Western School of Law provides a primer on modern Confrontation Clause jurisprudence under Crawford v. Washington and then proposes recasting its conceptual foundations along dignitary lines.

Murder and Money: The Dark Side of Taylor Swift. Through lyrics of Taylor Swift's music, Fred Vars from the University of Alabama examines the burden of proof requirements for the so-called "Slayer Rule," the rule prohibiting murderers from inheriting or otherwise benefitting from their victims.

Requiring More of Rule 407. Cynara Hermes McQuillan of Touro Law Center discusses a current circuit split on how to interpret Rule 407, the prohibition against evidence of subsequent remedial measures, a controversy that touches on the fundamental tension between textualist and purposivist approaches to statutory interpretation.

The Pseudo-Theology of Penitent Privilege. Nathan Ristuccia of the Institute for Free Speech discusses how the clergy-penitent privilege has changed over time both in doctrinal substance and theory

Visual Decision Aids for Forensic Science Evidence. Gianni Ribeiro from the University of Southern Queensland reports on a psychological study showing that visual decision aids can improve juror understanding of forensic tests.

Neuroscience Evidence in Criminal Cases. Debby Denno from Fordham Law School draws on a long-term empirical project and investigates what types of neuroscience evidence really drive criminal cases.

Past-Acts Evidence in Excessive Force Litigation. James Stone from Stanford University discusses some proposed reforms to the way that courts handle past-acts evidence, both with respect to plaintiffs and police-defendants, in excessive police force cases.

Snitching. Sasha Natapoff from Harvard Law School discusses the problems of criminal informant testimony.

Provisional Assumptions. Heidi Liu from George Washington University Law School discusses the problems of asking jurors to ignore inadmissible evidence and proposes an alternative mechanism – the “provisional assumption.”