Green v. State

MOYLAN, Judge.

In the late Professor Irving Younger’s classic illustration of forensic imprecision, the trial attorney, pressed to state a reason for objecting to an item of evidence, responds, “Because it is incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial.” That objection, of course, embraces the entire law of evidence. In Younger’s words, “It says absolutely everything and thereby says absolutely nothing.”

In pursuit of greater particularity, the case now before us provides a textbook example of the differences among competence, relevance, and materiality. At issue is an out-of-court assertion which…