Opinion ID: 1660527
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: whether the trial court erred by granting the state's motion in limine to prohibit all mention of the conviction of a state's witness.

Text: ¶ 8. The State filed a motion in limine in which it requested the court to prohibit any mention of the convictions of its witness, Arthur Danny Doc Johnson. It was granted, and Rogers asserts that this motion violated his right to confront witnesses against him as set forth in the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 3, Section 26, of the Mississippi Constitution. ¶ 9. Mississippi Rule of Evidence 609(a) states the rule relevant to this matter as follows: (a) General Rule. For the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that he has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted if elicited from him or established by public record during cross-examination but only if the crime (1) was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year under the law under which he was convicted, and the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect on a party or (2) involved dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment. ¶ 10. Johnson was currently serving a sentence for a drug conviction, and because of this rule, Rogers intended to question him about this conviction when he testified. [2] Rogers relies on Young v. State, 731 So.2d 1145, 1151 (Miss.1999), stating that the prejudicial effect of the evidence is not relevant to this matter because Johnson is only a witness, and not a party; and therefore, his testimony cannot be prejudiced by the introduction of this evidence. In Young, we held that it was an abuse of discretion for the trial judge to have excluded evidence of the witness's prior convictions under M.R.E. 609, because the witness was not a party to the case, and any prejudice to him was irrelevant. Id. at 1151. We should note that in White v. State, we followed Young by reversing White's conviction in the lower court and remanding for a new trial in order to allow for impeachment purposes the introduction of evidence of prior convictions of the State's chief witness. White v. State, 785 So.2d 1059, 1063 (Miss.2001). The matter before us is distinguishable from Young and White. The State's key witness in Young denied he had ever been convicted of a felony during the cross-examination. Johnson did not deny that he had used drugs and drank alcohol the night before and the day of the shooting. Further, Jessie testified that Johnson had been drinking beer and using crystal methamphetamine the night before the shooting. Johnson testified that he had not used the crystal meth, but that he had been drinking and smoking pot the previous night. He also testified that he drank five to six beers the day of the shooting. Terry testified that he, Jessie, and Johnson had been, shooting crystal methamphetamine, smoking marijuana, eating Valiums, and they were drinking. Rogers's counsel also presented the use of drugs by Jessie, Johnson, and Terry to the jury during closing arguments. Although there may have been error in not allowing Rogers to introduce evidence of Johnson's prior convictions for impeachment, any such error is harmless since Rogers was able to use the testimony of Johnson and other witnesses to show Johnson's involvement with and use of drugs. ¶ 11. In a similar case, Hobson v. State, 730 So.2d 20, 25-26 (Miss.1998), we found that the trial court's error in not allowing a witness to be questioned about his prior felony convictions to be harmless error when the witness was questioned extensively about his drug use. The trial court did err by not allowing Rogers to question Johnson, since no prejudicial effect may be had by a witness who is not a party to the case. However, we find this error by the trial court to be harmless.