Book contents
- Critical Evidence
- Critical Evidence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Foreword: An Outsider’s Tribute
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Introduction to the Field and Its Actors
- Part II The Rules
- Section 1 Relevance and Prejudice
- Relevance, Reconsidered
- The Relevance and Prejudice of Poverty Evidence
- Toward a Critical Race Theory of Evidence
- Section 2 Character Evidence
- Character (Evidence) Assassination
- Disability as a Character Chameleon
- Different Spanks for Different Ranks
- Evidence Without Rules
- Judging Demeanor
- Section 3 Credibility
- Law’s Credibility Problem
- Teaching Impeachment
- Section 4 Sex Trials
- Real Women, Real Rape
- Unchaste and Incredible
- Feminist Take(s) on Other (Sexual) Bad Acts
- Section 5 Hearsay and Confrontation
- The Neglected Origins of the Hearsay Rule in American Slavery
- Examining the American Hearsay Prohibition’s Roots in Slavery
- Hearsay and Confrontation from a Feminist Gaze
- Facially Neutral, Quietly Skewed
- Section 6 Experts
- Who Says You’re Disabled? The Role of Medical Evidence in the ADA Definition of Disability
- Beyond the Binary
- Presumed Expertise
- Party-Blind Review
- Unequal Burdens of Proof
- Section 7 Privileges
- Underprivileged
- Parent-Child Privilege as Resistance
- Part III Expanding Evidence
- Suggested Readings
Unequal Burdens of Proof
Racism, Legal Epistemic Injustice, and Opinion Testimony
from Part II - The Rules
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 October 2026
Book contents
- Critical Evidence
- Critical Evidence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Foreword: An Outsider’s Tribute
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Introduction to the Field and Its Actors
- Part II The Rules
- Section 1 Relevance and Prejudice
- Relevance, Reconsidered
- The Relevance and Prejudice of Poverty Evidence
- Toward a Critical Race Theory of Evidence
- Section 2 Character Evidence
- Character (Evidence) Assassination
- Disability as a Character Chameleon
- Different Spanks for Different Ranks
- Evidence Without Rules
- Judging Demeanor
- Section 3 Credibility
- Law’s Credibility Problem
- Teaching Impeachment
- Section 4 Sex Trials
- Real Women, Real Rape
- Unchaste and Incredible
- Feminist Take(s) on Other (Sexual) Bad Acts
- Section 5 Hearsay and Confrontation
- The Neglected Origins of the Hearsay Rule in American Slavery
- Examining the American Hearsay Prohibition’s Roots in Slavery
- Hearsay and Confrontation from a Feminist Gaze
- Facially Neutral, Quietly Skewed
- Section 6 Experts
- Who Says You’re Disabled? The Role of Medical Evidence in the ADA Definition of Disability
- Beyond the Binary
- Presumed Expertise
- Party-Blind Review
- Unequal Burdens of Proof
- Section 7 Privileges
- Underprivileged
- Parent-Child Privilege as Resistance
- Part III Expanding Evidence
- Suggested Readings
Summary
The poet Maya Angelou once said that there is “no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” The agony of an untold story seems particularly acute when a person is unheard or disbelieved in a courtroom. When one cannot testify or have their testimony believed, the facts of their story – their truth – for all practical purposes, do not exist in the determination of their case. When a person’s story relates to racism and they have been silenced or not fully believed due to structural bias in evidence rules, attorneys’ evidentiary practices, the judge’s gatekeeping of evidence, or fact finders’ conclusions, it constitutes a profound legal epistemic injustice that warrants evidentiary intervention.
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- Critical Evidence , pp. 340 - 356Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
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