“If a party introduces all or part of a writing or recorded statement, an adverse party may require the introduction, at that time, of any other part — or any other writing or recorded statement — that in fairness ought to be considered at the same time.” MRE 106.
Committee Tip:
The policy behind the rule is two-fold: (a) to avoid matters being taken out of context, resulting in false or misleading impressions; and (b) to provide the opposing attorney an opportunity to cure any prejudice created by a lack of context through later introduction of missing evidence.
“MRE 106 has no bearing on the admissibility of the underlying evidence; rather it allows the adverse party to supplement the record to provide a complete picture.” People v Clark, 330 Mich App 392, 421-423 (2019) (MRE 106 was not implicated where “the officers failed to record a few moments of [a] second interrogation, . . . nothing prevented defendant from eliciting testimony from the police officers to fill in the gaps created by the failure to record defendant’s entire interview,” and there was no assertion “that the video at issue had been altered in any way”).
However, “MRE 106 does not automatically permit an adverse party to introduce into evidence the rest of a document once the other party mentions a portion of it. Rather, MRE 106 logically limits the supplemental evidence to evidence that ‘ought in fairness to be considered contemporaneously with it.’” People v Herndon, 246 Mich App 371, 411 n 85 (2001), quoting MRE 106.
“[T]he rule of completeness only pertains to the admissibility of writings or recorded statements[.]” People v Solloway, 316 Mich App 174, 201 (2016) (holding that MRE 106 was irrelevant where the defendant argued that the failure to admit the actual testimony of two witnesses whose testimony was excluded as hearsay violated the rule of completeness).
Committee Tip:
While not often coming up when MRE 106 is in play, the admissibility of the rest and remainder evidence may have to satisfy other rules of evidence to be admissible.