Module 5
Medical Forensic Sexual Assault Examinations: What Are They, and What Can They Tell the Courts?

The Rules of Evidence

Whether a SANE testifies as a fact witness, an expert witness, or as both, her testimony is limited by the rules of evidence specific to her state or, in federal court, by the federal rules of evidence, which are the basis for most state rules.

As explained in Module 2, the rules of evidence are very strict and impose significant limitations on what witnesses of any kind may say. Sometimes these rules do not seem to make sense, but witnesses must abide by them nonetheless.

 

This module will be available to you as soon as you complete Module 1. To complete a module, you must read each of the lessons and complete the review quiz at the end.

It is important to finish Module 1 so that you have sufficient context for the rest of the program. After that, you'll have full access to jump between lessons however works best for you.

Tip: In the left sidebar, you'll notice a vertical bar of squares. Each square represents a lesson in that module. You can see at a glance which lessons you've done (brightly colored) and which ones you have not (gray).

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