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in this lesson we're continuing our discussion of tangible evidence specifically we want to focus on the best Evidence Rule under rules 1001 through 1008 of the Federal Rules of Evidence but Before we jump into it there's one key point we needed to establish and that is that there is no evidentiary rule that requires a party to put forth the best evidence they possess to prove any given fact that is not what the best Evidence Rule is about even though that's what it sounds like it's doing right that's not the best Evidence Rule imagine for example all right because you classically see this on evidence multiple choice questions imagine that we have a fact pattern of a bank robbery and let's say on one hand we have a 90 year old witness who witnessed with I witness right witnessed this bank robbery occur but let's say that due to her age right she a significant hearing loss significant vision loss she's doing the best that she can but she does have these major sensory defects and let's say on the other hand we have 10 ultra HD video cameras that caught the entire robbery from beginning to end from almost every angle you could imagine right so the question is is the prosecution required under the best Evidence Rule to produce the video footage because it's the best evidence to prove their facts right and the answer is no right that's not what the best Evidence Rule is about it's a very misleading title and that's classically a wrong answer choice right anytime you see that this person has to put forward this evidence because it's the best evidence they have pursuant to the best Evidence Rule right that's usually going to be a wrong answer right any time we're think about the best Evidence Rule you really want to go to 1001 and apply it directly to the facts right we don't want to just get tricked up by the name best Evidence Rule okay and so why though is it called the best Evidence Rule well this is a common law principle right and back in the old days right back in the old times we Majan before we had the technology that we had today what ended up happening when somebody needed to make a copy of something say we have a breach of contract action in the early 1900's or 1800s right well if we want to bring a copy a copy of that contract to court how are you going to do it without a photocopier well what a lot of times what would happen is we would have a scribe or somebody sit there and hand copy the contract imagine we have a 20-page contract and someone's gonna sit there by hand and line by line copy it what's likely to happen right inevitably there's going to be mistakes in this copying process right and that even a very small minor mistake in a contract action could be huge right one term gets changed slightly could change the entire outcome of the action so in the common law days this was called the best Evidence Rule meaning we prefer the original over these handwritten copies right but now today it's less of a problem because we have photo copiers like we have Xerox machines that can make 100% reliable duplicates most of the time right so this is where we end up with the best Evidence Rule and it's less applicable today than it was for that reason right we don't have as many problems copying documents as we may have when people were having to do it by hand but nonetheless 1001 and the best Evidence Rule still has some applicability today and you might see it on an evidence back patent so we'll talk about exactly how it plays out but it's important to recognize off the top that it has a misleading name where all of this is to say the title of best Evidence Rule can be misleading I would recommend in your head you think of this rule as the original document rule because in some cases right when a party is introducing of writing a recording or a photograph to prove the contents of the writing recording or photograph then rule 1001 requires the party to produce the original or inaccurate duplicate as defined by rule 1001 of the Federal Rules of Evidence right so important to recognize that when I use the term duplicate throughout this lesson right I don't mean this like a layman might mean the word duplicate I mean duplicate as defined by rule 1001 of the Federal Rules of Evidence which requires some sort of electronic mechanical chemical or otherwise machine right process to accurately produce reliable copies right that's what 1001 is requiring but we're not talking about handwritten copies handwritten copies is not a duplicate pursuant to 1001 that's not what we're talking about we're talking about a machine of some kind that can accurately make copies like a photocopier or Xerox machine right but again anytime that a party is introducing a writing a recording or a photograph for the purpose of proving the contents of the writing recording or photograph then the original document rule or the best Evidence Rule is triggered and we need that party to produce the original or a duplicate pursuant to 1001 right so the question then becomes for us well what do we mean by offering a writing recording your photograph to prove its contents when are we doing that well I've identified for us the three main situations where this is happening what we want to look out for on an evidence backed item if any of these situations come up right that's a trigger that's an issue spotting trigger for the best Evidence Rule that's where we need to really think about analyzing 1001 because in all of these cases the party is introducing the writing recording or photograph to prove its contents right so our first situation we want to look out for is where the event to be proved is a written transaction this would be any document that is legally operative right if you execute the document and upon execution it has some sort of legal effect like a contract a will a trust a deed right in all of these cases that triggers 1001 you have to put forth the original right or duplicate as defined by 1001 of the federal Rules of Evidence right so this is pretty easy to see right any type of contract will trust deed anything that has legal effect when you execute any document that in of itself when you execute it it has some sort of legal effect right then we need the original or duplicate right that's just straight triggers 1001 now what we want to look out for here is writings that exist independently from the event so classically imagine that you have a confession that's reduced to a writing right this happens all the time so police are interrogating a suspect we have some detectives interrogating a suspect he orally confesses to the detectives and then they reduced that confession to a writing well what do we have here we have two separate things right that writing doesn't have legal effect in and of itself the making of it they just happen to reduce this event the confession to a writing right they're two separate things we have an oral confession and we have a writing right and so here the best Evidence Rule does not apply when the events ought to be proved existed independently from the writing so if we have a confession that just so happened to be recorded either videotape or reduced to a writing like that doesn't necessarily end of itself trigger the best Evidence Rule for example if a did that that detective who's questioning the suspect comes to court and testifies to the confession just because that detective has come to court and is testifying to the confession right he has personal knowledge of it he's allowed to come to court and do that it's not a hearsay violation under 801 d-2 statement against a party opponent right he's allowed to do that and that doesn't trigger the best Evidence Rule right even though that that confession was reduced to a writing that exists independently from the events ought to be proved here right this oral confession is a separate entity from the writing now a contract right compare that to a breach of contract a will a trust that has legal effect when you execute it right that doesn't exist independently so we do need the original document for contracts wills deeds written transactions but if we just have some record of something that was made to happen to be made at the same time some event happens right that does not trigger the best Evidence Rule okay however right under our second a requirement that we want to look out for and this is probably what many of you are thinking about right now what if a party chooses to introduce a writing recording or photograph to prove a fact thank you so much for watching this video preview of our legal education accelerator program or leap for short if you would like to see the conclusion of this video and gain full access to our entire 1l and 2l video library integrated outlines streamable audio versions additional practice exams with explanations and much more we invite you to head over to our website and join the thousands of law students who have already enrolled to get started with your no risk free trial today simply click the link in the description box below or visit www.flashmavi.com for [Music] hi everyone my name is Serena and I'm currently a law student at South Texas College of Law Houston hi everybody my name is Shiva and I'm currently a law student at Southwestern hi everyone my name is Michelle and I am a first year student at South Texas College of Law Houston I used to student cut a study video series last semester to help me prepare mostly for contracts and then I actually made an a-plus in contracts last semester which I greatly dedicate to the student cata videos by using student cata to help me prepare for my final exam I was able to score the highest grade out of my class on the final and even have my essay distributed as the model answer not to mention I had done quite poorly on the midterm and was struggling throughout the whole course of the semester understanding the material and keeping up with lectures because of the Student 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