View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Saint Louis University School of Law Research: Scholarship Commons Saint Louis University Law Journal Volume 50 Number 4 (Summer 2006) Article 13 2006 Prejudice vs. Probative Value, Philadelphia Style Michael Avery Suffolk University Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Avery, Michael (2006) "Prejudice vs. Probative Value, Philadelphia Style," Saint Louis University Law Journal: Vol. 50 : No. 4 , Article 13. Available at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/lj/vol50/iss4/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Saint Louis University Law Journal by an authorized editor of Scholarship Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected],
[email protected]. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW PREJUDICE vs. PROBATIVE VALUE, PHILADELPHIA STYLE MICHAEL AVERY* Rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence provides that relevant evidence may be excluded “if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.”1 Rule 403 cuts across all of the other rules of evidence and is one of the most frequently invoked rules during trials. Teaching the various concepts that come into play in applying this rule poses several challenges, and many students have substantial difficulty in understanding what constitutes “unfair prejudice.” For the first class on Rule 403, I assign some practical problems from the textbook2 and the case of Old Chief v.