Legal requirements for an examination in chief

Competency of your witness - The first legal requirement is that your witness must be competent to testify. To qualify as competent, a witness must have: (1) Understanding of the nature and obligation of the oath or affirmation to tell the truth, (2) Perception (knowledge) of the the relevant event, (3) Recollection (memory) of the relevant event, and (4) Ability to communicate Relevance of your witness' testimony - The second legal requirement for your direct examination is that your witness' testimony must be relevant. Relevant evidence is evidence that has some (any) tendency; however slight, to make the existence of a fact of consequence to the case more or less probable than it would be without it. Authenticity of matters of evidence to show that the item in question is what its proponent claims it is - The third requirement for your direct examination is that matters of evidence must be authenticated. You authenticate an item of evidence by making a prima facie showing that it is genuine. Proper evidentiary foundation or predicate for the admissibility of the evidence - Certain items of evidence require special foundations to establish admissibility. For example, if your evidence is hearsay and, thus, presumptively inadmissible prima facie, but will be required to establish its admissibility under one of the hearsay exceptions. Over and above this, the lawyer conducting examination in Chief must also be careful to stick to the legalities as mentioned above.

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