Evidence Chapter 2 Quiz

In a civil assault case, the plaintiff introduces a blood-stained golf club that she claims the defendant used to beat her.  The club is:

A. Demonstrative evidence.

B. Real evidence.

C. Oral eyewitness testimony.

D. Stipulated evidence.

Real evidence.

Correct.  The plaintiff claims that the defendant used the club to administer the beating; that makes the club a physical object used in the disputed incident.  The plaintiff must authenticate the club in some manner, probably by testifying that she recognizes its distinctive features or picked it up after the beating and kept it in a secure place.  Assuming that the plaintiff satisfies the authentication rules, which we will discuss later in the course, the judge will admit the club as real evidence.

Defendant is being prosecuted for possessing narcotics with the intent to sell.  The prosecutor introduces a plastic bag of powdered sugar and asks the police detective on the witness stand to use the sugar to show how the defendant packaged the narcotics.  The bag of sugar is:

A. Eyewitness evidence.

B. Expert evidence.

C. Real evidence.

D. Demonstrative evidence.

Demonstrative evidence.

Correct.  Rather than risk taking real narcotics into the courtroom, prosecutors sometimes use a model to show the jury how the defendant packaged and sold the drugs.  Powdered sugar looks a lot like cocaine, so a plastic bag of powdered sugar is demonstrative evidence used to illustrate the contraband.

A small software company sues three larger competitors, claiming that they violated price-fixing laws by intentionally agreeing to sell products at the same price.  The small company introduces pricelists distributed by the three competitors.  The three pricelists each advertise fifty different products at varying costs; each product, however, carries the same price on all the three lists.  The three pricelists are:

A. Real evidence that provides direct evidence of an intentional agreement to fix prices.

B. Demonstrative evidence that provides direct evidence of an intentional agreement to fix prices.

C. Real evidence that provides circumstantial evidence of an intentional agreement to fix prices.

D. Demonstrative evidence that provides circumstantial evidence of an intentional agreement to fix prices.

Real evidence that provides circumstantial evidence of an intentional agreement to fix prices.

Correct.  The pricelists are documents that serve as real evidence; they are the actual pricelists distributed by the defendants.  The lists, however, do not contain any direct evidence of the defendants' intent or agreement.  Instead, the plaintiff will use the lists to urge the jury to infer that the defendants must have intentionally agreed to advertise the same price for each product.  The number of identical prices, plaintiff will argue, is too large to result from coincidence.  This is a circumstantial use of the pricelists.

Have you had some water?

A. Yes

B. No 

YES (if not, fix it)