Trial Evidence Author:William Reynolds Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. RULES OF EXCLUSION. § 12. Res Inter Alios; facts not directly in issue, nor relevant thereto as above stated, are inadmissible.—All facts not i... more »n issue themselves, and not connected with some fact in issue, or relevant thereto in some one of the above four ways, namely, either as forming part of the same transaction or subject matter; or as constituting a probable cause for it; or as the natural effect of it; or as necessary to explain or introduce it, are inadmissible in evidence for the purpose of forming the ground of an inference that such fact in issue or relevant fact probably did or did not exist,1 and are frequently designated, somewhat loosely, by the term, res inter alias, a phrase originally derived from the maxim res inter olios acta alteri nocere non debet, but which is often used by the bench and bar 1 Ste. Dig., art. 10 and note VI; Holcome v. Hew- son, 2 Camp., 391; State v. Lapage, 57 N. H., 245; 24 Am. R., 69; Gehagan v. Boston, etc., R. R., 1 Allen, 187; 79 Am. D., 7324. in the sense of irrelevant.2 This principle, that courts are not at liberty to infer from one fact the probable existence or non-existence of another fact merely because the two are similar, unless they can be first shown to be part of the same transaction, or to be connected together in some way by the chain of cause and effect, is one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the English law of evidence. It stands in marked contrast with the practice which prevails among some of the continental nations of Europe, where in criminal cases it is customary for the prosecution to collect and set out before the tribunal before which the case is tried, a detailed history of the entire previous life of the accused, in order that it may judge therefrom of the probability of ...« less