Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 838

529US3

Unit: $U58

[09-26-01 12:26:35] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 753 (2000)

763

Souter, J., dissenting

he was held to have thrown it all away by doing his best to
protect his position by offering evidence of his own”).2 The
general thrust of the law of evidence, then, not only fails to
support the majority’s approach, but points rather clearly in
the other direction.

With neither precedent nor principle to support its chosen
rule, the majority is reduced to saying that “there is noth-
ing ‘unfair’
. about putting petitioner to her choice in
accordance with the normal rules of trial.” 3 Ante, at 759.
Things are not this simple, however.

.

.

Any claim of a new rule’s fairness under normal trial con-
ditions will have to stand or fall on how well the rule would
serve the objects that trials in general, and the Rules of Evi-
dence in particular, are designed to achieve. Thus the pro-
visions of Federal Rule of Evidence 102, that “[t]hese rules
shall be construed to secure fairness in administration, elimi-
nation of unjustiﬁable expense and delay, and promotion of
growth and development of the law of evidence to the end
that the truth may be ascertained and proceedings justly
determined.” A judge’s job, accordingly, is to curb the tac-
tics of the trial battle in favor of weighing evidence calmly
and getting to the most sensible understanding of whatever
gave rise to the controversy before the court. The question
is not which side gains a tactical advantage, but which rule
assists in uncovering the truth. Today’s new rule can make
no such claim.

2 The point on which the analysis of the cited treatises turns, it should
be clear, is not which party ﬁrst introduces the evidence, but rather which
party seeks introduction and which exclusion. A defense lawyer who
elicits testimony about prior convictions on direct examination, having
failed in an attempt to have them excluded, is plainly making a defensive
use of the convictions; he has no desire to impeach his client. The fact
that it is the defense lawyer who ﬁrst introduces the convictions, then, is
irrelevant to the principle the majority invokes.

3 For the reasons just given, this begs the question, which is whether
the “normal rules of trial” apply beyond the normal circumstances for
which they were devised.