5) BUSINESS AND PUBLIC RECORDS -- The law assumes that organizations and individuals create records for a reason, and have a vested interest in seeing that they are accurate. There are two ways to get such records admitted into evidence, either under the awkward authentication rule of documentary evidence, or under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. Most lawyers prefer the hearsay exception route, and it can be said this is the most expanding area of hearsay exceptions. All sorts of records can be admitted: school records, medical records, financial records, and computer records (to name a few). The absence of records can also be used to make hearsay inferences about the conduct of an organization or individual. About the only type of record that is excluded are police investigatory records where police have extracted second-hand information. Rap sheets and arrest records are, also, for the most part, excluded, especially in criminal trials where such evidence would be unfairly prejudicial. Previous conviction of a crime cannot be used as evidence in a subsequent criminal action, although a few states (like California) have evidence codes that allow admission of previous felonious behavior. Previous arrest records are widely used, however, in sentencing hearings and civil trials. To be admissible, hearsay records must follow the best evidence rule by being recorded in the normal course of doing business and at the time the business was conducted. Computer records best satisfy this rule, and the field of computer forensics has opened the door to a vast number of possibilities in this area.
AI
