Introduction

This handbook of the Hawaii Rules of Evidence (HRE) was designed to be brought to court and be at your side in the office. It is sold at cost and e-copies are free to download. It is a public service project for me. I will receive no money from the sale of paper copies.

In addition to the rules of evidence, this book contains a series of short appendices:

App. A – The history of the rules of evidence and restyling efforts

App. B – Case law diversions from the language of the rules

App. C – Differences between the Hawaii Rules and the Federal Rules

App. D – A list of Hawaii Rules that do not appear in the Federal Rules

This handbook does not contain the commentary to the rules. All cases cited in the original commentary are now over 37 years old.

You may purchase an printed copy of this book off the internet or a link on my “Hawaii Rules of Evidence (HRE) Book Page.” To get to my HRE Book Page, Google – Barkai & HRE. On that “Hawaii Rules of Evidence (HRE) Book Page” you can download a free copy of

• This book in Word or PDF format
• The Hawaii Rules of Evidence with the commentary
• The Hawaii Rules of Evidence without the commentary
• The Federal Rules of Evidence

For an explanation of the case law and policy behind the Hawaii Rules of Evidence, see Addison Bowman’s excellent text, the Hawaii Rules of Evidence Manual 2016-2017, which is available from LexisNexis and Amazon. That book “presents, analyzes, and explains the Hawaii Rules of Evidence, and includes all the cases that apply, construe, or even mention” the rules “plus some of the earlier Hawaii cases and selected decisions of the US Supreme Court and the US Courts of appeals applying counterpart Federal Rules of Evidence.”

Professor John Barkai
William S. Richardson School of Law
University of Hawaii

Honolulu, Hawaii
2018