{"id":7239,"date":"2025-08-07T21:27:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T01:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/?p=7239"},"modified":"2025-09-15T19:25:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:25:28","slug":"legal-intelligencer-bad-character-good-evidence-reclaiming-character-evidence-for-strategic-use-in-civil-litigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/legal-intelligencer-bad-character-good-evidence-reclaiming-character-evidence-for-strategic-use-in-civil-litigation\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Intelligencer: Bad Character, Good Evidence: Reclaiming Character Evidence for Strategic Use in Civil Litigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the August 7, 2025 edition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.com\/thelegalintelligencer\/\">The Legal Intelligencer<\/a>, Edward Kang writes, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.com\/thelegalintelligencer\/2025\/08\/07\/bad-character-good-evidence-reclaiming-character-evidence-for-strategic-use-in-civil-litigation\/\">Bad Character, Good Evidence: Reclaiming Character Evidence for Strategic Use in Civil Litigation<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Character evidence has a paradoxical position in the law of evidence: deeply relevant in many cases, yet presumptively inadmissible. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 404 and its state counterparts, parties are generally barred from introducing evidence of a person\u2019s character or character trait to argue that they acted in keeping with that character on a particular occasion. This is the so-called \u201cpropensity rule,\u201d a prohibition on suggesting that someone did something simply because they are the sort of person who would. Rule 404(a)(1) codifies this general exclusion, and Rule 403\u2019s balancing test, typically used to weigh probative value against prejudicial effect, is preempted in these cases by the categorical nature of the prohibition in Rule 404. There are exceptions, however. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/legal-intelligencer-bad-character-good-evidence-reclaiming-character-evidence-for-strategic-use-in-civil-litigation\/#more-7239\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the August 7, 2025 edition of The Legal Intelligencer, Edward Kang writes, &#8220;Bad Character, Good Evidence: Reclaiming Character Evidence for Strategic Use in Civil Litigation.&#8221; Character evidence has a paradoxical position in the law of evidence: deeply relevant in many cases, yet presumptively inadmissible. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 404 and its state counterparts, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[414],"tags":[336],"coauthors":[535],"class_list":["post-7239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications","tag-legal-intelligencer","publication_lawyer-edward-t-kang"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Legal Intelligencer: Bad Character, Good Evidence: Reclaiming Character Evidence for Strategic Use in Civil Litigation &#8212; Kang Haggerty News &#8212; August 7, 2025<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the August 7, 2025 edition of The Legal Intelligencer, Edward Kang writes, &quot;Bad Character, Good Evidence: Reclaiming Character Evidence for Strategic &#8212; August 7, 2025\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/legal-intelligencer-bad-character-good-evidence-reclaiming-character-evidence-for-strategic-use-in-civil-litigation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Legal Intelligencer: Bad Character, Good Evidence: Reclaiming Character Evidence for Strategic Use in Civil Litigation &#8212; Kang Haggerty News &#8212; August 7, 2025\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the August 7, 2025 edition of The Legal Intelligencer, Edward Kang writes, &quot;Bad Character, Good Evidence: Reclaiming Character Evidence for Strategic &#8212; August 7, 2025\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/legal-intelligencer-bad-character-good-evidence-reclaiming-character-evidence-for-strategic-use-in-civil-litigation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kang Haggerty News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-08T01:27:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-15T23:25:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.khflaw.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Edward-Kang-Article.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"627\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Edward T. 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