But don’t worry for the defendant who must fight not only a current
allegation but also age-old unproven, or even disproved, allegations. The trial judge will give a cautionary
instruction which is presumed to wipe all prejudice from the jury’s mind. So in our most recent
controlled-study-turned-law-review-article, my coauthor Lawrence White and I
tested this claim. In so doing, we found that
cautionary instructions are not effective and jurors will use other-acts
evidence for impermissible purposes, including the forbidden character
inference. To learn more, including some possible approaches to countering other-acts evidence on behalf of your clients,
see the pre-publication draft of our article, forthcoming in the Florida Law
Review, titled Convictions Based on Character: An Empirical Test of Other-Acts Evidence.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Convictions Based on Character: An Empirical Test of Other-Acts Evidence (forthcoming, Florida L. Rev.)
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