Evidence
Scope
Evidence tests relevance, character evidence, impeachment, hearsay and its exceptions, privileges, authentication, and the best-evidence rule. The Michigan Rules of Evidence track the Federal Rules closely, so analyze using the federal numbering and note state deviations.
Character and impeachment
Proving character to show conduct in conformity is barred in civil cases and in the defendant's criminal case-in-chief, but the accused may open the door and the prosecution may then rebut. MIMIC evidence (motive, intent, absence of mistake, identity, common plan) is admissible for a non-propensity purpose. Impeachment by prior conviction uses the Rule 609 balancing test; prior inconsistent statements must have been given under oath to be substantive.
Hearsay
Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered for its truth. Nonhearsay uses include effect on the listener, verbal acts, and then-existing state of mind. Exemptions under 801(d) cover the opposing party's statements and certain prior consistent statements. Rule 803 exceptions never require unavailability; Rule 804 exceptions do.
Confrontation
Testimonial statements from an unavailable declarant are inadmissible unless the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine (Crawford). Dying declarations and forfeiture by wrongdoing are the recognized paths around that bar.
Worked example
At a robbery trial the prosecution offers an officer's testimony that a now-missing witness identified the defendant at the scene. The statement is testimonial and the witness is unavailable, so the Confrontation Clause bars it even though an 804 exception fits - an exception to hearsay is not an answer to Crawford.
Traps
Forgetting that hearsay within hearsay needs two theories; using a declarant's state of mind to prove the fact remembered; and assuming business records are admissible without a qualified custodian.