How to Break Down the February 2026 California Bar Exam Performance Test

The Task Memo

The PT is much more formulaic than people think. The February 2026 California PT is a good example. Once you strip away the subject matter and the intimidating language, the task becomes much more straightforward. The first thing you should notice is that the memo tells you exactly what you are doing, as it always does. You are preparing a brief in support of a motion in limine seeking to exclude a handwritten transcript of text messages. A lot of examinees probably got hung up on the phrase “motion in limine” and started thinking they needed outside, real-life criminal law or evidence knowledge to complete the task. You did not. That is one of the most common PT mistakes. It does not matter what the filing is called. What matters is whether the task is objective or persuasive. Here, it is plainly persuasive. You are arguing for your client. That immediately tells you how you need to frame the document.

The task memo also tells you something else that people often ignore. It specifically says not to prepare a statement of facts, but to use the facts in your argument as necessary. That instruction matters. On the PT, the examiners are not interested in whether you can write a polished factual summary just because it looks lawyerly. They want to see whether you can follow instructions, pull rules from the library, and use the facts in a focused way to support legal arguments. If the memo tells you not to include a fact section, do not waste time creating one. Even if the memo is silent as to a statement of facts, I still would not waste time writing one. The graders want to see your analysis, not your ability to recite a story.

The Library

Once you understand the task, the next move is to read the library before the file. Most people know this, but still default to reading the file first under pressure. The order matters. If you go into the file first, you are just reading facts without a framework. But if you go into the library first, you are reading with purpose. You are learning the rules, the policy, the factors, and most importantly, the reasoning you will later use in your own argument. No different than how you approach the essays or MBE, you get the law first and then the facts.

In this PT, the rule bank looks intimidating at first because it gives you Rules 1001, 1002, and 1004. But again, people tend to overcomplicate that. The point of the rule bank is not to make you master evidence law on the spot or search for the hidden rule that changes everything. The point is that the cases will show you exactly how those rules are supposed to be used. Once you understand that, the library becomes much less scary.

State of Columbia v. Susan Jones

The first case, State of Columbia v. Susan Jones, is a classic PT case. It starts with background and procedural history, which is helpful for context but not usually where the real value lies. The real value comes from the rules, policy, and reasoning. The Jones court explains that Rule 1002 applies when a party is trying to prove the contents of a writing. But it also explains that an event may be proved by non-documentary evidence even if a written record exists. That distinction is critical. The case then gives you the policy behind the rule: the purpose is to prevent inaccuracy and fraud when someone is trying to prove the contents of a writing, because slight changes in wording can matter and oral testimony about contents is more prone to error. That policy is not filler. That is part of your future argument.

The reasoning in Jones is the real goldmine. The detective’s notes and testimony were admitted there not to prove what the emails said, but only to show that Jones and her co-conspirator were in communication. That gives you the exact question you should carry into your own file: is the State trying to prove the contents of the messages, or merely the fact that communication occurred? That distinction becomes critical when you later read the file. You should be asking yourself whether the State is using the transcript merely to show that communication occurred, or whether it is relying on the specific wording of the messages to prove the substance of a conspiracy. That is the kind of reasoning you are supposed to borrow and apply.

State of Columbia v. Brian Grimes

The second case, State of Columbia v. Brian Grimes, is even more important because it deals directly with a motion in limine and the use of secondary evidence when the original documents are gone. In Grimes, the State wanted to introduce photographs of travelers checks after the originals disappeared while in police custody. The court held that the trial court erred in denying the motion in limine. That tells you right away that this is your pro-exclusion case.

Grimes then gives you much more than just a result. It gives you a full balancing framework. The court explains that when criminal evidence is lost or destroyed, the main concern is providing the accused an opportunity to examine relevant evidence and receive a fair trial.

It says the court must weigh the degree of prejudice to the defendant against the quality of the government’s conduct, which is your basic balancing test. Further, Grimes notes the government bears the burden of justifying its conduct, while the defendant bears the burden of showing prejudice. This should be pointed out in your brief.

It also gives specific considerations, including whether the evidence was lost while in government custody, whether the government acted in disregard of the defendant’s interests, whether it was negligent in failing to adhere to reasonable standards of care, whether the acts were deliberate or done in good faith, the centrality of the missing evidence, the reliability of substitute evidence, and the probable effect on the jury. When you have factors given to you on the PT, you should try to hit each one, although not with the same weight. The case will inevitably point you to which factors are dispositive, and you will follow the reasoning of the case by giving extra weight to those factors.

These factors are not abstract. When you get to the file, you should be looking for facts that speak directly to government fault and the reliability of the substitute evidence, because those will drive the outcome under Grimes.

Once Rule 1002 and Jones make clear that the State is trying to prove the contents of the texts, the originals are required unless an exception applies. Because the originals are gone, the State must rely on Rule 1004(a). But under Grimes, Rule 1004(a) does not automatically make the transcript admissible. The court still has to weigh the government’s conduct against the prejudice to the defendant.

The Case File

You should not be reading the transcript blindly. You should be reading it with the rules and reasoning from the cases in mind. You are no longer trying to figure out the law. You are trying to match facts to rules, policy, factors, and reasoning. That is exactly what happens here. In the file, the State plans to rely on a handwritten transcript of text messages between John Davis and Sally Cameron to prove they conspired to distribute cocaine. That should immediately trigger the Jones analysis: is the State offering the messages to prove communication, or to prove the content of those communications? Are the messages being offered merely to show that Davis and Cameron communicated, or is the State trying to prove the actual contents of the texts?

Here, the answer seems clear. The State wants to use the transcript to show that Cameron routinely connected Davis with buyers and that Davis then met with those buyers to carry out drug sales. That is not just proof that communication occurred. That is proof of content. So Rule 1002 becomes a serious issue and again we have a natural comparison to the facts of the Jones case.

The file also tells you that the original text messages no longer exist. That should immediately make you think of Grimes. Why are the originals gone? Were they lost or destroyed? Was there bad faith? Was the government negligent? Is there prejudice to the defendant? Those are now the right questions, because Grimes already told you that those are the questions that matter. The State does have a response, however: the messages appear to have been auto-deleted, there is no clear evidence of bad faith, Davis destroyed his own phone, and the provider had no copies. But Grimes still favors exclusion because bad faith is not the only issue. The phone was in police custody, no real preservation steps were taken, and the missing evidence was central to the case.

Then you get Officer Powers’s testimony, and this is where people either score points or waste them. Powers says he found text messages that appeared to involve drug deals and then made a handwritten verbatim transcript over the course of two days while also handling interviews, phone calls, and other interruptions. He later discovered that the texts had been deleted while the phone was in the evidence locker. He says Cameron had her phone set to automatically delete messages after two weeks. He also admits that the department never printed the messages, never made an electronic copy, has no real training on handling this kind of evidence, and has no standard protocol for preserving text messages.

That gives you a much more nuanced analysis than many examinees probably saw in the moment. On one hand, the auto-delete feature cuts against a strong bad faith argument because it suggests the police may not have intentionally destroyed the evidence.

On the other hand, the government’s position is still weak. The phone was in police custody. No meaningful preservation steps were taken. There was no standard protocol. There was no electronic copy. The only substitute is a handwritten transcript prepared by one officer over two days while distracted by other work. That goes directly to reliability, government fault, and prejudice.

APPLICATION

Here, the State is not offering the transcript merely to show that Davis and Cameron communicated. Instead, it is relying on the specific wording of the messages (e.g., arranging buyers, quantities, and timing) to prove a drug conspiracy. That is precisely the situation Jones warns about, which is where the exact content of the communication is central, and therefore the original is required.

Here, as in Grimes, the evidence was lost while in government custody, and the State cannot point to any meaningful preservation efforts. Officer Powers admitted there was no protocol, no training, and no attempt to create a reliable copy. That reflects at least negligence, if not disregard for the defendant’s interests. That level of fault, combined with the central importance of the messages and the weak reliability of the transcript, strongly supports exclusion under Grimes.

The transcript is also weaker than it sounds. Powers prepared it over two days while dealing with interruptions and admitted he tried not to miss anything that “seemed like it might be important.” That suggests selection rather than exact transcription, which undermines reliability under Grimes and reinforces the Jones concern that wording matters when the State is trying to prove content.

RECAP

This is exactly how the PT is supposed to work. You read the cases, extract the rule reasoning framework, and then plug the file facts into that same framework. You do not invent arguments from scratch or search for hidden rules. You take the blueprint from the library and use the facts to build the argument the cases already pointed you toward.

And that is why the PT is much more formulaic than people think. The problem usually is not intelligence. It is not lack of effort. It is that a lot of people never learn how to break the PT into a process. And even when they understand the process, they struggle to execute it consistently under time pressure. They read everything, feel overwhelmed, and then start writing before they really understand what the cases gave them. Once you understand that the PT is about task recognition, extracting rules and reasoning, and matching facts to that structure, it becomes much more manageable.

Final Takeaway

The PT isn’t random. And it’s definitely not a writing contest. You don’t get points for sounding like a lawyer. You get points for doing a very specific job:

• pull the rules

• understand how the cases actually use those rules

• plug the facts into that same framework

That’s it. If you don’t have that process, the PT feels chaotic. You read everything, get overwhelmed, and start writing before you actually know what matters.

If you do have it, this becomes one of the most predictable parts of the exam.

Same structure. Every time.

If you felt like you understood the PT but couldn’t turn it into a strong answer, that’s exactly what we fix. Book a free strategy call and we’ll walk through where your execution is breaking down.

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