A jury instruction in which the judge instructs the jury to consider a piece of evidence for a specific purpose and ignore it for any other purpose. At trial, a court may admit evidence that is admissible for one purpose or against one party but not another. In this case, counsel can request that the court offer a limiting instruction regarding that evidence. See Federal Rules of Evidence 105. Occasionally, counsel may decide to refrain from requesting a limiting instruction for strategic reasons, such as to avoid potentially emphasizing damaging evidence for the jury by asking the court to exclude it. The idea behind a limiting instruction is that it is better to admit relevant and probative evidence, even in a limited capacity, and take the chance that the jury will properly apply it in its decision making, rather than to exclude it altogether. A court’s failure to give a proper limiting instruction may constitute a reversible error, which would permit the appellate court to reverse the trial court’s judgment if the instruction improperly prejudiced the jury in reaching its verdict.
[Last updated in June of 2020 by the Wex Definitions Team]