Also known as: impertinent evidences · irrelevant evidence · immaterial evidence
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Evidence that bears no logical connection to any fact of consequence in the action. Such evidence fails the threshold test of relevance and cannot be admitted.
Alexis sues MetroBank for securities fraud over risk disclosures. She offers a video of the CEO praising charitable donations. The court excludes the video because the remarks do not tend to prove or disprove any misrepresentation about investment risk.
In a sexual assault prosecution the state calls an analyst who assumes without proof that a DNA profile came from the victim's swabs. The court bars the assumption because nothing connects the profile to the charged incident and the testimony therefore supplies no fact of consequence.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
After a murder conviction the state seeks to introduce lengthy testimony about the victim's unrelated community work. The court excludes the testimony because it does not bear on any aggravating factor defined by statute and therefore lacks relevance to the sentencing decision.
A defendant charged with violating a sign ordinance offers testimony that he asked the state's attorney whether the sign was lawful. The court excludes the testimony because the advice does not tend to disprove the defendant's knowledge of the penal statute or his intent to erect the sign.
Evidence is impertinent if it has no tendency to make any fact of consequence more or less probable. The court applies this threshold before considering any other exclusionary rule.
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No. Irrelevant evidence is inadmissible in every case. The rules contain no exception that relaxes the relevance requirement for civil litigation.
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No. A hearsay exception or exclusion applies only after the evidence has first satisfied the relevance requirement. An internal email or video that does not relate to any disputed fact remains inadmissible.
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No. A visual aid that does not depict any fact of consequence or illustrate admissible testimony fails the relevance test and must be excluded even if vivid.
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Evidence of general habits is relevant only when it tends to make a specific disputed fact more or less probable. Unrelated late-payment records do not tend to prove whether a client ignored a particular legal deadline.
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…Cellmark’s profile was accurate, Lambatos’ testimony would be irrelevant, but the Confrontation Clause bars not the admission of irrelevant evidence, but the admission of testimonial statements by declarants who are not subject to cross-examination. Here, the trial record does not lack admissible evidence with respect to the source of…