Under The Federal Rules of Evidence (United States)
Until the Federal Rules of Evidence were restyled in 2011, Rule 401 defined relevance as follows:
"Relevant evidence" means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.
This definition incorporates the requirement that evidence be both material ("of consequence to the determination of the action") and have probative value ("having any tendency to make the existence of any fact...more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence"). The restyled Rule 401, however, separates these traditional concepts in order to make the rule clearer and more easily understood. The amended language essentially rewrites the rule as a test, rather than a definition, for relevance:
Evidence is relevant if:
- (a) it has any tendency to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence; and
- (b) the fact is of consequence in determining the action.
Read more about this topic: Probative Evidence
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