Evidence: Types of evidence - Authentication + Hague Evidence Convention + Relevance

An ancient document, in the law of evidence, refers to both a means of authentication for a piece of documentary evidence, and an exception to the hearsay rule.

Authentication.

With respect to authentication, an "ancient document" is one that may be deemed authentic without a witness to attest to the circumstances of its creation because its age suggests that it is unlikely to have been falsified in anticipation of the litigation in which it is introduced.

Under the American Federal Rules of Evidence ("FRE"), a document is deemed authentic if it is:

1.    at least twenty years old;

2.    in a condition that makes it free from suspicion concerning its authenticity; and.

3.    found in a place where such a writing was likely to be kept.

Many states have similar rules but may limit the application of the doctrine to specific kinds of documents such as dispositive instruments (primarily conveyances, deeds, and wills), and may require the documents to be even older.

By admitting an ancient document into evidence, it is presumed only that the document is what it purports to be, but there are no presumptions about the truth of the document's contents. A jury can still decide that the author of the document was lying or mistaken when the author wrote it.

The Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters—more commonly referred to as the Hague Evidence Convention—is a multilateral treaty which was drafted under the auspices of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCPIL). The treaty was negotiated in 1967 and 1968 and signed in The Hague on 18 March 1970. It entered into force in 1972. It allows transmission of letters of request (letters rogatory) from one signatory state (where the evidence is sought) to another signatory state (where the evidence is located) without recourse to consular and diplomatic channels. Inside the US, obtaining evidence under the Evidence Convention can be compared to comity.

The Hague Evidence Convention was not the first convention to address the transmission of evidence from one state to another. The 1905 Civil Procedure Convention—also signed in The Hague—contained provisions dealing with the transmission of evidence. However, that earlier convention did not command wide support and was only ratified by 22 countries.

Relevance, in the common law of evidence, is the tendency of a given item of evidence to prove or disprove one of the legal elements of the case, or to have probative value to make one of the elements of the case likelier or not. Probative is a term used in law to signify "tending to prove". Probative evidence "seeks the truth". Generally in law, evidence that is not probative (doesn't tend to prove the proposition for which it is proffered) is inadmissible and the rules of evidence permit it to be excluded from a proceeding or stricken from the record "if objected to by opposing counsel". A balancing test may come into the picture if the value of the evidence needs to be weighed versus its prejudicial nature.