Rule 413 about?

Rule 413 about?

• A. Evidence of a defendant's prior sexually assaultive behavior to prove propensity for sexual offenses; admissible in some cases.
• B. Past recollection recorded.
• C. Summaries to prove content of voluminous writings.
• D. D duplicates admissible to same extent.

Answer: (A)

Rule 413 allows evidence of a defendant’s prior sexual offenses to prove propensity to commit sexual offenses in a criminal case. This creates an exception to the general rule that character evidence isn’t admissible to prove conduct, giving the court a pathway to show the defendant is more likely to have committed the charged sexual offense. The evidence must be relevant to the charged offense, and the court weighs its probative value against potential unfair prejudice under Rule 403, with possible limiting instructions to minimize prejudice. Importantly, the prior acts need not be charged or proven by conviction; they can be other acts of sexual offenses that meet relevance and reliability standards. The other options point to different rules: past recollection recorded deals with a witness’s memory of recorded statements; summaries to prove content of voluminous writings is about Rule 1006; duplicates admissible to the same extent concerns Rule 1003.

Rule 413 allows evidence of a defendant’s prior sexual offenses to prove propensity to commit sexual offenses in a criminal case. This creates an exception to the general rule that character evidence isn’t admissible to prove conduct, giving the court a pathway to show the defendant is more likely to have committed the charged sexual offense. The evidence must be relevant to the charged offense, and the court weighs its probative value against potential unfair prejudice under Rule 403, with possible limiting instructions to minimize prejudice. Importantly, the prior acts need not be charged or proven by conviction; they can be other acts of sexual offenses that meet relevance and reliability standards.

The other options point to different rules: past recollection recorded deals with a witness’s memory of recorded statements; summaries to prove content of voluminous writings is about Rule 1006; duplicates admissible to the same extent concerns Rule 1003.