Also known as: routine practices · habit or routine
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Evidence describing an organization's customary sequence of actions performed in response to a repeated situation. The evidence may be admitted to prove that the organization followed the same sequence on a particular occasion. Admission does not require corroboration or an eyewitness to the specific occasion.
Robert Rivera checked into White Suites and later discovered his laptop missing from the room. He sued the hotel, alleging the front desk clerk failed to reprogram the key after the prior guest departed. White Suites offered coworker testimony that the clerk always re-coded keys immediately upon checkout while printing the invoice. The court admitted the testimony to show the clerk followed the same steps when Rivera checked in.
Rachel Ramirez sued Gate Media after a stage light fell and injured her at its venue. Gate Media offered its stage manager's testimony that she always performed a pre-show checklist thirty minutes before doors opened by tugging each fixture and marking a laminated form. The court admitted the testimony to prove the lights received the required inspection on the night of the accident.
On July 7, 2004, Investigator Mark Anderson of the Coffee County Sheriff's Department learned that Bennie Dean Herring had arrived at the department's impound lot to retrieve items from his truck. Anderson, familiar with Herring from prior encounters, directed the county warrant clerk, Sandy Pope, to check for outstanding arrest warrants. Finding none locally, Pope contacted Sharon Morgan, the warrant clerk in neighboring Dale County, whose database indicated an active warrant for Herring's failure to appear on a felony charge. Anderson and a deputy followed Herring as he left the lot, stopped his vehicle, and arrested him based on the reported warrant. A search incident to the arrest uncovered methamphetamine in Herring's pocket and a pistol in his truck. Shortly thereafter, Morgan discovered that the warrant had actually been recalled five months earlier in February 2004, but the recall had not been entered into the Dale County database. She notified Pope, who alerted Anderson via radio, all within ten to fifteen minutes of the arrest. Herring was indicted in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. He faced charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and possession of methamphetamine under 21 U.S.C. § 844(a). He moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the search, arguing that the arrest was unlawful because the warrant had been rescinded. The Magistrate Judge recommended denying the suppression motion, a recommendation adopted by the District Court in 451 F.Supp.2d 1290 (2005). The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the conviction in 492 F.3d 1212 (2007), concluding that the database error was merely negligent and attenuated from the arrest. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address the application of the exclusionary rule in this context.
View caseRyan Roberts, a passenger injured in a bus collision at an unlit intersection, sued Blue Dispatch and its driver. Blue Dispatch offered coworker testimony that the driver always came to a complete stop and counted to three at that crossing every night after a prior near-miss. The court admitted the testimony to show the driver followed the same practice on the night of the collision.
Petitioner Dickerson was indicted for bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery, and using a firearm in the course of committing a crime of violence. Before trial, Dickerson moved to suppress a statement he had made at a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office on the grounds that he had not received Miranda warnings before being interrogated. The District Court granted his motion to suppress, and the Government took an interlocutory appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That court reversed the District Court's suppression order. It agreed that petitioner had not received Miranda warnings before making his statement but held that 18 U.S.C. § 3501 governed the admissibility of the statement. The Fourth Circuit concluded that Miranda was not a constitutional holding and that Congress could therefore have the final say on admissibility. Two years after Miranda was decided, Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 3501, which provides that a confession shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given and directs the trial judge to consider specified factors in determining voluntariness. Because of the importance of the questions raised by the Court of Appeals' decision, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseRoutine practice evidence describes a specific, repeated sequence of actions in response to a particular situation. Character evidence concerns a general propensity or trait. Rule 406 permits the former to prove conduct on a given occasion while generally barring the latter under Rule 404.
Supporting sources
No. The rule expressly states that evidence of routine practice may be admitted regardless of whether it is corroborated or whether there was an eyewitness to the specific occasion.
Supporting sources
The conduct must be a regular response to a repeated specific situation and sufficiently unreflective or semi-automatic. Occasional deviations under stress or changed conditions can undermine the inference that the practice was followed on the occasion in question.
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…testimony, our application of those Clauses to the context of custodial police interrogation is relatively recent because the routine practice of such interrogation is itself a relatively new development. See, e. g., Miranda , 384 U. S., at 445-458. : See also Davis v. United States , 512 U. S. 452, 457-458 (1994);…