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the state tried to attack bradley as a witness by attempting to call ana rodriguez and the man bun guy. judge mcafee disallowed most testimony under the premise that it fell under an exemption described in “Rule 608(b).” I wanted to try to find out where this rule is described and why it applies.

Using a web search, I found something called the Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE for short). Under FRE, I found a Rule 608 as follows:

Rule 608. A Witness’s Character for Truthfulness or Untruthfulness
(a) Reputation or Opinion Evidence. A witness’s credibility may be attacked or supported by
testimony about the witness’s reputation for having a character for truthfulness or
untruthfulness, or by testimony in the form of an opinion about that character. But evidence
of truthful character is admissible only after the witness’s character for truthfulness has
been attacked.
(b) Specific Instances of Conduct. Except for a criminal conviction under Rule 609, extrinsic
evidence is not admissible to prove specific instances of a witness’s conduct in order to
attack or support the witness’s character for truthfulness. But the court may, on crossexamination, allow them to be inquired into if they are probative of the character for
truthfulness or untruthfulness of:
(1) the witness; or
(2) another witness whose character the witness being cross-examined has testified about.
By testifying on another matter, a witness does not waive any privilege against selfincrimination for testimony that relates only to the witness’s character for truthfulness

I can understand the concern about limiting the number of secondary issues in a hearing to a minimum for time reasons, and that this Rule 608(b) might be used to disqualify the testimony of witness Rodgriguez in the alleged state attempt to impeach state witness Bradley.

However, what I am wondering is whether this Rule 608(b) (if I have found the correct Rule 608(b)) could be used to deny entry of the cellhawk cell phone tower analysis affidavit provided by Mittelstadt. Does the affidavit fall into a different category of evidence than extrinsic evidence as used in Rule 608(b)? My legalese is rudimentary.