Also known as: FRE 402 · Federal Rule of Evidence 402
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A rule of evidence declaring that relevant evidence is admissible unless the Constitution, a federal statute, these rules, or other rules prescribed by the Supreme Court provide otherwise. Irrelevant evidence is not admissible.
Carla sued Apex Motors over a defective airbag. Apex served pretrial disclosures identifying crash-test videos thirty-five days before trial. Carla filed written objections to the videos within ten days. The court denied Apex's motion to strike because Carla preserved non-relevance objections under the governing timeline.
Federal agents seized bank records from a third party without standing to challenge the search. The government offered the records to prove Payner's tax violations. The district court suppressed the evidence under its supervisory power even though the records were relevant to the charges.
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Old Chief offered to stipulate to his prior felony conviction to avoid revealing its assault nature. The government insisted on introducing the full judgment. The trial court admitted the judgment because the conviction element remained relevant despite the stipulation offer.
Huddleston was charged with possessing stolen televisions. The government offered evidence of his prior dealings in stolen goods. The trial court admitted the evidence after finding it relevant to knowledge under the governing standard.
Parents sued a pharmaceutical company alleging that a drug caused birth defects. Their experts relied on animal studies and reanalyses of published data. The trial court excluded the testimony after determining it failed to meet the relevance threshold for scientific evidence.
Stevens was prosecuted under a federal statute for selling videos depicting animal fighting. He challenged the statute as overbroad. The Court held that the depictions were relevant to the prohibited conduct and the statute survived the constitutional challenge.
Relevant evidence remains subject to exclusion under the Constitution, federal statutes, the Federal Rules of Evidence, or other Supreme Court rules. Rule 403 supplies the most common additional filter by allowing exclusion when probative value is substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice or other dangers.
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Failure to object within fourteen days waives most objections to deposition designations and exhibits. Objections under Rules 402 and 403 are expressly preserved and may still be raised at trial even without a timely filing.
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The proponent must show that the demonstrative has some tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable. A generic marketing animation unrelated to the actual systems or events at issue fails this test and is properly excluded as irrelevant.
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Rule 402 requires relevance as a threshold condition, but evidence must also satisfy authentication under Rule 901. Screenshots lacking any indicia that they are what the proponent claims are properly excluded even if the content would otherwise be relevant.
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…Court concludes that reliability and relevancy are the touchstones of the admissibility of expert testimony. Ante , at 590-592. Federal Rule of Evidence 402 provides, as the Court points out, that “[e]vidence which is not relevant is not admissible.” But there is no similar reference in the Rule to “reliability.” The Court constructs its…