5 - Judicial Notice

Abstract

Publisher Summary Judicial notice may be defined as the recognition and acceptance of certain facts that are reasonably undisputable that a judge, under the rules of evidentiary procedure, may properly take or act upon without proof, either because the facts noticed are indisputable as a matter of notorious common knowledge or because the facts noticed are capable of being immediately verified by consultation with standard reference works. Judicial notice is a method of dispensing with the necessity for taking proof and is intended to avoid the formal introduction of evidence in limited circumstances where the fact sought to be proved is so well known that evidence in support thereof is unnecessary. Judicial notice involves the acceptance as true of certain facts and laws without the necessity of introducing evidence. In using judicial notice as a substitute for evidence, courts are generally permitted to take judicial notice at a pretrial hearing, during a trial, and at the appellate stage of a criminal case. In taking judicial notice, what passes for common knowledge will vary with the geographic area where the court sits and does not necessarily depend upon the actual knowledge of the judge.