Opinion ID: 248931
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Competency of the Government Witnesses

Text: 7 Schoppel contends that his conviction may not stand because it is based upon the unreliable testimony of his fellow inmates, convicts who were said to be under the influence and control of the Lorton officials when they testified. Counsel appointed by this court to prosecute the appeal has labored with great zeal and traced the history of the common law rule of incompetency of convicted persons as witnesses. He urges that the rule is based upon reason and should be applied here. Doubtless at one time felons, along with certain other classes of potential witnesses, were wholly barred from testifying. Even accused persons without a record of conviction were formerly not permitted to testify in their own behalf. 2 Wigmore on Evidence, 575 (3rd Ed. 1940). However the common law did not reject the testimony of all prosoners, for the writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum was certainly not unknown. 3 Blackstone Comm. 130. 8 Be this as it may, the trend in recent years has been to allow any person of competent understanding to testify and to let the jury take into account the character of the witness in determining his credibility and the weight to be accorded his testimony. The Supreme Court so held in regard to a convicted felon in Rosen v. United States, 1918, 245 U.S. 467, 38 S.Ct. 148, 62 L.Ed. 406, and a similar liberal view of admissibility was announced in respect to the testimony of a wife called as a witness for her husband, abrogating the ancient rule of exclusion, Funk v. United States, 1933, 290 U.S. 371, 54 S.Ct. 212, 78 L.Ed. 369. 9 When Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Title 18 U.S.C.A., was later adopted pursuant to Congressional authorization, it embodied the same doctrine. It provides in part: 10 '   The admissibility of evidence and the competency and privileges of witnesses shall be governed, except when an act of Congress or these rules otherwise provide, by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience.' 11 The Advisory Committee on Rules noted that this rule contemplates the development of a uniform body of rules of evidence for criminal cases in the Federal Courts, and that while based on the common law, it 'does not fetter the applicable law of evidence to that originally existing at common law,' but that 'the law may be modified and adjusted from time to time by judicial decisions.' F.R.Cr.Proc., 18 U.S.C.A. p. 255. 12 For other criminal cases, decided both before and after the adoption of Rule 26, which hold that convicted felons are competent to testify, see: United States v. Segelman, D.C.W.D.Pa.1949, 83 F.Supp. 890; Chapman v. United States, 5 Cir., 1926, 10 F.2d 124; Peace v. United States, 7 Cir., 1921, 278 F. 180; Ammerman v. United States, 8 Cir., 1920, 267 F. 136, 143. Indeed, the practice of calling prisoners as witnesses is so common that the objection is now seldom raised and never upheld in Federal Courts, and in the states too the common law rule has generally been abandoned, except for those convicted of perjury. 2 Wigmore 519, (3rd Ed. 1940). Even a convicted perjurer may competently testify in a Federal Court. United States v. Margolis, 3 Cir., 1943, 138 F.2d 1002. 13 If reason and experience are to enter in the resolution of the problem which the appellant raises, there is no room to doubt that in a prosecution for a brutal killing committed in a prison dormitory it would offend common sense to insist on the automatic rejection of the testimony of all available eye witnesses because they are not men of character. It is better to let the witnesses be heard and trust the practical sagacity of the jurors who have been made fully aware of their informants' shortcomings. For an instance where the witness was allowed to testify although serving a sentence in the federal penitentiary at the time of the trial, see Hagan v. United States, 8 Cir., 1925, 9 F.2d 562, 563. 14