RULES OF ADMISSIBILITY

RULE 130
A. OBJECT (REAL) EVIDENCE
Section 1. Object as evidence. Objects as evidence are those addressed to the senses of the court.
When an object is relevant to the fact in issue, it may be exhibited to, examined or viewed by the
court.
QUESTION 1. What is object (real) evidence?
ANSWER: Object (real) evidence is that which is addressed to the senses of the tribunal, as
where objects are presented for the inspection of the court.
QUESTION 2. How is object (real) evidence classified?
ANSWER: Object (real) evidence may consist of articles or persons, which may be exhibited
inside or outside the courtroom; it may also consist in the mere inspection of an object; or in an
experiment.
QUESTION 3. What is the scope of object (real) evidence?
ANSWER: Object (real evidence) is not limited to that which may be known by the sense of
vision; it extends to what is perceived by the senses of hearing, taste, smell or touch. In one case
the singing of songs, being material was permitted before the court. Where it is necessary to
ascertain whether or not a liquid is a fermented cider, the judge may taste. This has been availed
of for the exhibition of a rupture as a defense in a prosecution for rape viewing of an allegedly
lewd show by the court; exhibition to show age; race; physical proportions or resemblance;
production of whiskey bottles and their contents, to be looked at, smelled and tasted by the court,
the playing of detectographs and records; the weapons and bloody garments of a participant in a
felony; ill-fitting clothes worn by the purchaser in court to show their inept manufacture the use
of courtroom furniture to reconstruct a scene; the use by a witness of his body to illustrate his
testimony; as well as the whole area of accessorial real evidence in the form of photographs,
motion pictures and x-rays.
QUESTION 4. Distinguish object (real) evidence from demonstrative evidence.
ANSWER: Object (real) evidence is a tangible object that played some actual role in the matter
that gave rise to the litigation. For instance, the knife used in the altercation that forms the basis
for the lawsuit.
Demonstrative evidence, by contrast, is tangible evidence that merely illustrates a matter
of importance in the litigation. Common types of demonstrative evidence include maps,
diagrams, models, summaries and other materials created especially for the litigation.
QUESTION 5. What is the importance of the distinction?
ANSWER: The distinction between object (real) evidence and demonstrative evidence is
important because it helps determine the standards that the evidence must to be admissible. In
particular, the foundation that must be laid for object (real) evidence is generally somewhat
different from that needed for demonstrative evidence.
For object (real) evidence, the required foundation relates to proving that evidence is
indeed the object used in the underlying event. Thus suppose that in prosecution for selling
heroin to an undercover agent, the state presents white powder that it says was sold by D to the
agent; the foundation consists of evidence tending to prove that this powder was indeed the
powder sold by D to the agent.
The foundation for demonstrative evidence, by contrast does not involve showing that the
object was the one used in the underlying event. Rather, the foundation generally involves
showing that the demonstrative object fairly represents or illustrates what is alleged to illustrate.
For instance, where a drawing is presented to illustrate the relative positions of the protagonists
and witnesses to a killing, the foundation will normally consists of testimony by one or more
eyewitnesses or investigators stating that the drawing does indeed fairly represent the positons of
those present at the event.
QUESTION 6. What is the reason for the admissibility of object (real) evidence?
ANSWER: The evidence of one’s own senses, furnishes the strongest probability and indeed the
only perfect and indubitable certainty of the existence of any sensible fact.
Physical evidence is evidence of the highest order. It speaks more eloquently than a
hundred witnesses.
QUESTION 7. What are the requisites for the admissibility of object (real) evidence?
ANSWER: They are as follows:
(a) the object must be relevant to the fact in issue. For instance, in a murder case, the prosecution
offered into evidence a gun. Without a showing that the gun has at least some connection to the
crime (e.g., that it was found at the scene) , the gun is irrelevant--- it does not make any
proposition of fact more or less probable than it would be without the gun. Thus, there must be a
“Logical nexus between the evidence and the point on which it is offered)”.
(b) the object must be authenticated before it is admitted. Authentication normally consists of
showing that the object is the object that was involved in the underlying event. For example,
proof that this object is the gun that was actually used by the defendant in robbing the bank. And,
when the exhibition of an object is intended to establish its condition at previous time, it must be
proved first that from that time the object suffered no substantial change in its condition. Upon
the trial for murder, for instance, a portion of the skull of the deceased is not admissible in
evidence, where it has been buried for a long time and the evidence does not clearly show that it
is in the same condition that it was in at the time of the burial.