Opinion
A witness's inference or conclusion; admissible from lay witnesses if rationally based on perception, and from experts if qualified and reliable.
The classic MBE pattern hands you a witness whose opinion sounds lay but secretly rests on training, then asks whether it’s admissible. The tell is Rule 701(c): a lay opinion may not be based on scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge — that channel belongs to Rule 702. So a treating physician’s diagnosis or a cop’s “the skid marks show he was speeding” is expert testimony even from a fact witness, because each rests on specialized method. Watch the foundation: lay opinion demands personal perception (overlapping the personal-knowledge requirement), while an expert may rest on facts never personally observed. The answer usually turns on which rule governs, not on whether the inference is reasonable.
The trap is calling everyday inferences inadmissible because they’re “opinions” — speed, intoxication, sanity, identity, emotional state, and handwriting familiarity are all proper lay opinion. Conversely, don’t let an expert state outright that a criminal defendant did or didn’t have the charged mental state (Rule 704(b); the expert may still call conduct “consistent with” it). Hook: lay opinion is what you’d swear to having seen with your own eyes — anything needing a credential jumps to 702.
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