Rule 615 Excluding Witnesses
Rule Text
(a) Exclusion and Right to Remain in the Courtroom. At a party’s request, the court must order prospective witnesses, including police officers and other investigators, excluded so that they cannot hear other witnesses’ testimony. Or the court may do so on its own. But this rule does not authorize excluding:
(1) a party who is a natural person;
(2) an officer or employee of a party that is not a natural person, after being designated as the party’s representative by its attorney;
(3) a person whose presence a party shows to be essential to presenting the party’s claim or defense;
(4) a person authorized by statute to be present, or
(5) an attorney alleged in a habeas corpus proceeding to have acted ineffectively.
(b) Expert Witnesses. An expert witnesses who will testify in the case shall not be excluded from the courtroom unless the court, in the exercise of its discretion, directs that the witness be excluded for part or all of the proceedings prior to the expert's testimony.
(c) Separation of Witnesses. The court may also order that each excluded witness be kept separate from all other witnesses.
"including police officers and other investigators " has been added, and subdivision (5) has been added. REPORTER’S NOTE: subdivisions (b) and (c) were added by the Advisory Committee to assure that the preset expectation is that expert witnesses will be allowed to be present in the courtroom unless the trial judge determines that – in a particular circumstance – the experts should remain outside the courtroom prior to their testimony. Several jurisdictions have the subpart (c) provision noting the authority of the judge to require that witnesses be kept separate from one another prior to testifying.
ARTICLE VII OPINIONS AND EXPERT TESTIMONY