Advanced Objection Techniques: Arguing the Purpose of a Rule

The standard three pieces of the objection argument are the facts, the rule, and the connection between the two. There are two basic ways to create a connection between the two. Usually you’ll be using what’s called the “plain meaning” of the rule to argue that some particular fact is allowed into or barred from evidence. But you can also use the “purpose” of the rule. It’s a bit like arguing that while the “letter of the law” allows something, the “spirit of the law” forbids it, or vice versa. In real legal analysis and argument, determining the purpose of the law is a tremendously involved and tricky process, involving things like analyzing the legislative history of a rule. You can’t do that in Mock Trial- you don’t have that information in what you’re allowed to draw from and no judge is going to sit through a lengthy argument about legal purpose in a Mock Trial context. There are a few rules, however, for which purpose is clear enough that you can argue from it. You should come to understand those purposes more and more as you become familiar with the rules and hear more experienced people talk about them. One of the major purposes of relevance, for instance, is to prevent wasting a court’s time. The reasoning behind most hearsay exceptions is that in the situation described by the exception, a person’s motive to tell the truth is so great or their opportunity to lie so small that the concerns about veracity that motivate the hearsay rule are no longer pertinent. A lot of rules are also designed to protect the rights of the defendant and to ensure that the trial is fair.
If you’re going to use this technique, you need to state what you allege is the purpose of the rule, in much the same way as you should always briefly explain the rule or definition at issue. This will usually be one or two responses on in the argument- don’t bust out the purpose of the rule as the first thing you say. When it is, treat your statement of purpose much the same way you treat a statement of a definition or of a rule: state it as clearly and briefly as possible, and demonstrate the connection between it and the facts. For instance, one way in which I have used this technique is to argue that the “Statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment” (803(4) College Rules, 2012) hearsay exception does not cover statements made by doctors. My argument goes:
“Your Honor, this hearsay exception exists because patients are motivated to tell the truth to their doctors- they want to receive accurate diagnoses and treatment, so the law judges them likely to tell the truth. Doctors have no comparable motive; their personal well-being isn’t changed if they lie. They have no special reason to be truthful when making diagnostic statements, so this hearsay exception can’t be understood to include those statements.” (Please note that I am not trying to tell you that’s the right way to understand that exception. It’s just an interesting way to use the technique).