TITLE FOUR — RELEVANCY AND ITS LIMITS
Rule 401. Test for Relevant Evidence
Fact of Consequence. A fact is of consequence in determining the action when it bears upon:
an element of a charge, a claim, or a defense, including an affirmative defense and a matter in justification or excuse;
the identity of a person, an act, an object, a place, or an account;
the measure of damages, restitution, or other relief, or a matter in aggravation or mitigation of sentence;
the credibility of a witness or the weight of other evidence, as Rule 104(5) provides;
a preliminary question committed to the court by Rule 104(1); or
the background necessary to render other evidence intelligible to the fact finder, including the relationship of the parties, the sequence of events, and the setting in which the events occurred.
Dispute Not Required. A fact need not be contested to be of consequence. That a fact is uncontested, admitted, or the subject of a stipulation does not make evidence of that fact irrelevant, but bears upon the determination the court makes under Rule 403 and upon the determination the court makes under Rule 404(2)(c).
Degree of Probative Force. Evidence need not, standing alone, make a fact more probable than not, nor establish it conclusively, nor be sufficient to sustain a finding. It is enough that the evidence advance the inquiry by any degree, however slight. A single item of evidence is to be weighed for its contribution to the whole of the proof and not in isolation.
Direct and Circumstantial Evidence. Direct evidence and circumstantial evidence are of equal dignity under this Rule. No greater degree of certainty is required of circumstantial evidence, and no inference is disqualified because the relationship between the fact proved and the fact inferred is neither necessary nor inescapable, as Rule 301(2) provides.
Relevance Conditioned on a Fact. Where the relevance of an item of evidence depends upon the existence of another fact, the proponent shall proceed as Rule 104(2) provides. The court may admit the item de bene upon the condition that the conditioning proof be introduced later, and the item is subject to a motion to strike if that proof is not forthcoming.
Offer to Stipulate. An adverse party’s offer to stipulate to the fact which evidence is offered to prove does not render that evidence irrelevant. The offer, and the availability of alternative proof, are matters the court shall weigh in applying Rule 403.
Remoteness. The passage of time between an event and the trial does not of itself render evidence of the event irrelevant. Remoteness bears upon the weight of the evidence and upon the determination under Rule 403. In assessing remoteness the court shall have regard to the intervals in which conduct, arrest, charge, and trial occur in this State, and shall not apply a measure of remoteness drawn from a jurisdiction whose proceedings run upon a different scale.
Medium Immaterial. Evidence is not irrelevant because the conduct, statement, or transaction it concerns occurred in game, in a Discord channel, in the proceeding communications of this or another case, in a direct message, or in any other electronic medium. Whether such an item is what its proponent claims it to be is a question of authentication governed by Rules 901 and 902, and is distinct from the question of relevance governed by this Rule.
Determination. Relevance is a preliminary question for the court under Rule 104(1). The proponent bears the burden of establishing relevance and of identifying, when asked, the fact of consequence to which the evidence is directed. A determination that evidence is relevant does not bind the fact finder as to the weight to be given it.