The New Code of Evidence: a (very) Brief Introduction and Overview
| Publication year | 2021 |
| Pages | 210 |
73 CBJ 210. THE NEW CODE OF EVIDENCE: A (VERY) BRIEF INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
On June 28, 1999, the judges of the Superior Court adopted a Code of Evidence, to be effective on January 1, 2000. The purpose of this brief article is to provide an introduction to and overview of the Code. It is intended to provide a summary of the history, rationale and general scope of the Code, and to respond to what may be some questions about it. I will leave more detailed explanations, analyses and critiques to others.
1. THE HISTORY
In August, 1993, I was asked to chair a committee of the Connecticut Law Revision Commission, in order to draft a proposed code of evidence for Connecticut. This was in response to an earlier suggestion by then Chief justice Ellen A. Peters, which in turn led to a request by the then co-chairs of the judiciary Committee of the General Assembly for a cooperative effort among the judiciary, the legislature and the bar to prepare such a code. At that time, the thought was that a code of evidence would ultimately be presented to the legislature for enactment, and would be followed by a joint judicial and legislative oversight committee that would, from time to time, make recommendations for further changes.
In keeping with this idea, a drafting committee was formed under the aegis of the Law Revision Commission that encompassed representative members of the bench, the bar, and the legislative branch, represented by staff and members of the Law Revision Commission. I served as chair of the drafting committee, which also included: Professor Colin C. Tait, of the University of Connecticut School of Law; Supreme Court justice Joette Katz; Superior Court judges Julia L. Aurigemma, Samuel Freed and Joseph Q. Koletsky; Attorneys Robert Adelman, Jeffrey Apuzzo, Joseph Bruckman, William Dow III, David Elliot, Susann E. Gill, Donald Holtman, Houston Lowry, Jane Scholl, and Eric Wiechmann; Attorneys Jon FitzGerald, of the Law Revision Commission, and Rick Taff, of the Legislative Commissioner's Office; Representative Arthur O'Neill and judge Elliot Solomon, of the Law Revision Commission; Senator Thomas Upson; and Attorneys Jo Roberts and Eric Levine, of the staff of the Law Revision Commission. Thus, the drafting committee was broadly representative of all of the various legal constituencies that deal with the rules of evidence on a regular basis. It included representatives of the bench, the legislative branch, the civil plaintiffs' bar, the civil defendants' bar, the public defender's office, the private criminal defense bar, the state's attorneys, the Attorney General, and the bar in general.
The drafting committee worked diligently at this task from August, 1993, through the fall of 1997, when we -completed the Code and its accompanying Commentary, and submitted it to the Law Revision Commission. In December, 1997, the Law Revision Commission voted to adopt the Code with no revisions, and transmitted it to the judiciary Committee of the General Assembly for consideration in the 1998 leg~ islative session. At that point, however, we were informed...
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