When it Comes To Self-Defense, it is the Immediacy of the Response Needed, Not the Immediacy of the Threat

Jamison Koehler Defenses to Criminal Charges, Legal Concepts/Principles

Words in the law do not always mean what their dictionary definitions say they mean. With respect to a prior consistent statement, for example, it is not really, as suggested by the rule, that such a statement must be offered to rebut a charge of “recent fabrication.”  Instead, it is “only that the alleged contrivance be closer to the trial …

Judicial Notice: The Difference Between “Legislative” and “Adjudicative” Facts

Jamison Koehler Evidence, Legal Concepts/Principles

A court accepts a well-known and indisputable fact without taking the time and trouble of requiring a party to prove it.  What could be more straightforward, more commonsensical, than that?  As McCormick puts it, the “oldest and plainest ground for judicial notice is that the fact is so commonly known in the community as to make it unprofitable to require …