Notice-of-Alibi Rule Law and Legal Definition
Notice of alibi rule is a principle of criminal law that requires a criminal defendant who intends to call an alibi witness at trial to give notice as to who that witness is and where the defendant claims to have been at the time of the alleged offense upon written demand from the government. The government is, in turn, obligated to give notice to the defendant of any witness it intends to call to rebut the alibi testimony.
Notice-of-alibi rules, now in use in a large and growing number of States, are based on the proposition that the ends of justice will best be served by a system of liberal discovery which gives both parties the maximum possible amount of information with which to prepare their cases and thereby reduces the possibility of surprise at trial.
