TTTBE #12: Early Answer for Patrons (Patreon)

The answer to the question was (A) -- that the trial court will likely not allow defense counsel to question the witness about her prior citations for pigeon-feeding.

This is another Rule 403 question; the rule states that:  "The court may exclude relevant evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence."

Here, one could construct an argument that the pigeon-feeding evidence is potentially relevant in a very marginal way (as some people did on Twitter), but to the extent that it might be slighly indicative of paying attention, that probative value is vastly outweighed by the prejudicial impact of hounding a witness about her having "repeatedly broken the law."

Thomas got this question correct, and is now 7-for-12 (58.3%) and inching back towards a passing grade on the bar.

Most of our listeners got this question right, too, even when we called for dissenting answers on Twitter.  We analyze the other responses in more detail in Tuesday's Episode 47.  And, as always, stay tuned for another question when Question #13 drops along with Friday's Epsiode 48.  We hope you enjoyed playing along with TTTBE; please keep playing!