Objection (United States law)

In United States law, an objection is a formal challenge to evidence, an argument, or a question that breaks the rules of evidence or other procedural rules. Lawyers typically raise objections during trials to block a witness’s testimony, but they can also do so during depositions or in response to written discovery. In a trial or deposition, the objection usually comes right after the opposing side asks a question but before the witness answers, or when the opposing side tries to introduce something as evidence. The judge then decides whether the objection is “sustained” (the judge agrees and excludes the question, testimony, or evidence) or “overruled” (the judge disagrees and allows it). An attorney may rephrase a questioned question if the judge permits it. Lawyers should object before the witness answers. Research shows that frequent objections do not turn jurors against the attorney.

Beyond trials, an attorney can object to a judge’s ruling to preserve the right to appeal that ruling. Courts sometimes hold pretrial hearings to resolve issues like personal jurisdiction or whether to impose sanctions for serious misconduct; at those hearings, parties object to improper evidence or argument to ask the court to disregard it and to preserve objections for later appeals. Objections are also common in depositions during discovery, where they preserve the right to exclude testimony from being used later in motions, such as a motion for summary judgment.

Historically, after an objection was overruled at trial, an attorney had to immediately say “I except” and give a reason, or the objection was lost. At the end of the trial, the attorney also had to submit a written “bill of exceptions” listing all exceptions for appeal, which the judge signed and sealed to make part of the record. This bill of exceptions came from early English practice, where parties presented pleadings orally, the court ruled orally, and the clerk recorded only a summary. English trial courts sometimes avoided appellate review by having clerks omit certain rulings. Parliament fixed this in 1285 with the Statute of Westminster, which forced judges to seal a party’s written bill of exceptions and include it in the appellate record. Once modern American courts started using court reporters to produce verbatim transcripts, lawyers and judges realized exceptions were unnecessary because the objection and surrounding record were enough for appeals. Starting in the 1930s, exceptions were abolished in federal courts and many state courts. California, for example, didn’t abolish exceptions but made them irrelevant by treating nearly every trial court ruling as automatically excepted to. Today, in almost all U.S. courts, it’s enough that the objection was clearly made on the record.

A continuing objection allows an attorney to object once to a series of related questions, preserving the issue for appeal without interrupting the factfinder after every question. The court may permit this if the initial objection is overruled, allowing a silent continuing objection to reduce interruptions. This can protect a lawyer from being found negligent for failing to object to a line of questioning after earlier objections were overruled.

Proper reasons for objecting to a question include: ambiguous, confusing, misleading, vague, or unintelligible (the question isn’t clear enough for the witness); arguing the law (counsel is instructing the jury on legal rules); argumentative (the question argues rather than asks); asked and answered (the same attorney repeats a question already answered); asking a question unrelated to a proper use of a peremptory challenge or challenge for cause during jury selection; asking the jury to prejudge the evidence (jurors can’t promise a verdict based on certain facts); and assuming facts not in evidence (the question treats something as true that hasn’t been shown). In practice, courts tolerate a few broad opening questions but expect counsel to build from the witness’s answers.