Also known as: proffer of evidence · proffers of evidence · proffer · offer of proof
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Evidence that a party offers or proposes to introduce at a hearing or trial. When a court excludes the evidence, the offering party must make an offer of proof describing its substance unless the substance is already apparent from the context.
Penelope Price offered a witness statement about prior threats during her assault trial. The court excluded the statement as hearsay. Her counsel then described the statement's content and the witness's expected testimony on the record to preserve the issue for appeal.
Portia Price sought to introduce expert testimony on causation in her product liability suit. The court issued a pretrial order excluding the testimony. Because the ruling was definitive, her counsel did not need to renew the proffer at trial to preserve the claim of error.
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Pilar Pena attempted to introduce a business record during a contract dispute. After the court sustained an objection, the judge directed counsel to make the proffer through a question-and-answer format outside the jury's presence to clarify the document's foundation.
Philip Powell moved to suppress a weapon recovered during an unlawful search. The prosecution proffered testimony that officers would have found the weapon through an independent, lawful inventory search already underway. The court considered the proffer to determine whether suppression would serve any deterrent purpose.
Parker Phillips offered epidemiological studies linking a medication to birth defects in a products liability action. The defense challenged the studies' reliability. The court evaluated the proffered evidence to decide whether the expert's methodology satisfied the requirements for scientific validity.
Paige Porter faced charges for distributing videos depicting animal cruelty. She proffered evidence that the videos served educational and political purposes. The court assessed whether the proffered evidence demonstrated that the statute swept too broadly in regulating protected speech.
A party must make an offer of proof when the court excludes evidence unless the substance of the evidence is already apparent from the context. The offer informs the court of the evidence's content so the ruling can be reviewed on appeal.
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No. Once the court rules definitively on the record before or during trial, a party need not renew the objection or offer of proof to preserve a claim of error for appeal.
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The court may direct that the offer of proof be made in question-and-answer form. It may also make a statement on the record about the character or form of the evidence and the ruling.
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…however, is one of state law to be dealt with on remand. We emphasize that to win its case South Carolina must do more than proffer the legislature's declaration that the uses Lucas desires are inconsistent with the public interest, or the conclusory assertion that they violate a common-law maxim such as sic utere tuo…