not having anything to do with the matter at hand. irrelevant questions that merely disrupted the classroom lesson. Synonyms for irrelevant. extraneous, immaterial, impertinent, inapplicable, inapposite, irrelative.
Irrelevant evidence has no tendency to prove or disprove any contested fact in a lawsuit. West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. adj. not important, pertinent, or germane to the matter at hand or to any issue before the court.
It is often stated in the trio: "Irrelevant, immaterial and incompetent" to cover the bases. The judge must then rule on the relevancy of the question. If the question has been answered before the lawyer could say "objection," the judge may order that answer stricken from the record.
Synonyms for irrelevant. extraneous, immaterial, impertinent, inapplicable, inapposite, irrelative. Phrases Synonymous with irrelevant. beside the point,
For example, in a shoplifting case, evidence offered that the defendant was a member of the Communist party would never be allowed because it is both irrelevant to the underlying case and potentially inflammatory to the detriment of the defendant. In some cases, even relevant evidence is prohibited if it is so potentially inflammatory as to cause the jury to overreact to it. This is why gruesome photographs of accident victims are sometimes not allowed to be shown to the jury, for fear that they might overreact in their judgment against the defendant. In the end, it is all about the court’s control over the flow of competent, relevant, material evidence in order to arrive at a just outcome.
In the courtroom, especially in the case of a jury trial, information which is presented to the court is subject to various limitations and controls.
Hearsay statements (i.e., statements by a witness as to what another witness said they saw) would not be competent evidence and would not be admissible.
Relevance is also a requirement for the admission of evidence . In our example above, a conviction for a different offense ten years earlier in another state would hardly be relevant to whether the driver in our example ran through the stop sign in Pennsylvania. The only similarity between the two events is that they involve the same driver and an automobile. The offenses are different, they are separated in time, and essentially bear no relation to one another.
In our example, a witness would be allowed to testify that he saw the car run through the stop sign; one would not be allowed to testify that they were told by a third party that the car ran through the stop sign. Relevance is also a requirement for the admission of evidence.
If a lawyer asks a question that has nothing whatsoever to do with the claims being made or the defenses that being raised, a typical objection would be that the question is irrelevant.
There are many legal reasons why an attorney would make an objection, but the first one is likely to be “Your honor , that's irrelevant!”
The better practice is to simply have the witness admit that she been convicted in the past and remind the jury that prior criminal act had nothing to do with the claims being made in this medical malpractice lawsuit.
If you ever go into a courtroom and watch what happens in a civil trial involving an accident matter, or a medical malpractice matter or a wrongful death matter, you will notice that objections are made all the time.
One question they always want to know is whether the person who died had life insurance.
The judge must immediately determine whether the question being asked of the witness is somehow related to the issues in the case.
There are many instances where an attorney is permitted to ask the witness questions that reflect upon her credibility.
There's an old saying. “A lawyer who represents himself (herself) has a fool for a client.”
I invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment not to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury.
Back in the old days of English law, there were two courts - courts of equity and courts of law. Courts of law dealt with violations of written code (similar to modern-day criminal law, though not necessarily limited to criminal infractions). Courts of equity dealt with matters of "fairness" outside the codified laws.
writ of certiorari: An order issued by the U.S. Supreme Court directing the lower court to transmit records for a case which it will hear on appeal.
voir dire: Jury selection process of questioning prospective jurors, to ascertain their qualifications and determine any basis for challenge.
Thanks for the A2A! I love this as I love legalese and love Latin. Quite a lot of the formal legal words/terms are of latin origin, come to think of it, not a great point as most of our language is derived from Latin.
Many lawyers do tend to have a dry and ironic, often dark sense of humor, and this is definitely something that I have regardless of the situation.
If the judge feels that the attorney who objected is right, he will say "Objection sustained."
Your attorney might object because the witness is talking about a conversation she had with a friend.
In New York, if an attorney fails to object during the trial, loses his case and then tries to appeal, arguing there were errors of law, the first thing the appeals court will look at is whether the attorney raised the objection during the trial.
If the judge feels the objection is not correct, the judge will say "Objection overruled."
Sometimes an attorney will make an objection for strategic reasons.
I have found that the best and most experienced trial lawyers tend to limit the number of objections they make during trial.
You might even hear it during opening arguments.
But if you don't master (or at least begin to master) all of the common courtroom objections, you will likely have difficulty proving your claims or defenses in court.
Plus, if you want introduce valid evidence or testimony — and your opponent keeps objecting because you don't know how to handle common objections in court — you'll never have the chance to introduce important evidence supporting your version of the facts to the judge or jury. Mastering common objections in court is as much a skill as it is an art.
Speculation is a legal basis for objecting to witness testimony on grounds similar to the argumentative objection — because the evidence is not considered reliable or factual. A witness' testimony is limited to their personal knowledge of events (estimating is allowed, but most opinions are not).
Mastering common objections in court is as much a skill as it is an art. This means that you CAN learn how to: Identify when you should object to testimony from a witness and when you should object to inappropriate questioning by the opposing attorney;
Courtroom objections are an essential component of trial. Lack of experience with courtroom objections could destroy your chances of winning your case. You don't want to give your opponent in court free rein to introduce improper evidence (or ask inappropriate questions of witnesses).
The witness never said he got under the car twice a week — only that someone checked the brakes twice a week. If you'd like additional tips on how to identify questions that may be objectionable as argumentative, you can check out Trial Objections 101: Making and Responding to Objections.
But that's likely not the case. Argumentative is a legal term that means something similar to "drawing conclusions .". For the sake of simplicity, we'll refer to them as an argumentative objection.