Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 835.0

529US3

Unit: $U58

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760

OHLER v. UNITED STATES

Souter, J., dissenting

the defendant to weigh such pros and cons in deciding
whether to testify.”

For these reasons, we conclude that a defendant who pre-
emptively introduces evidence of a prior conviction on di-
rect examination may not on appeal claim that the admission
of such evidence was error.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth

Circuit is therefore afﬁrmed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Souter, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice

Ginsburg, and Justice Breyer join, dissenting.

The majority holds that a testifying defendant perforce
waives the right to appeal an adverse in limine ruling ad-
mitting prior convictions for impeachment. The holding is
without support in precedent, the rules of evidence, or the
reasonable objectives of trial, and I respectfully dissent.

The only case of this Court that the majority claims as
even tangential support for its waiver rule is Luce v. United
States, 469 U. S. 38 (1984). Ante, at 759. We held there
that a criminal defendant who remained off the stand could
not appeal an in limine ruling to admit prior convictions
as impeachment evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence
609(a). Since the defendant had not testiﬁed, he had never
suffered the impeachment, and the question was whether he
should be allowed to appeal the in limine ruling anyway, on
the rationale that the threatened impeachment had discour-
aged the exercise of his right to defend by his own testimony.
The answer turned on the practical realities of appellate
review.

An appellate court can neither determine why a defendant
refused to testify, nor compare the actual trial with the one
that would have occurred if the accused had taken the stand.
With unavoidable uncertainty about whether and how much
the in limine ruling harmed the defendant, and whether
it affected the trial at all, a rule allowing a silent defend-