Opinion ID: 787956
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Admission of Robbery Convictions.

Text: 41 As noted earlier, as a result of the district court's summary judgment rulings and Walker's withdrawal of claims against Auxer, Walker's only remaining claims were his claims that Lasky violated his First and Eighth Amendment rights, and the jury returned a verdict in Lasky's favor on those claims. 24 42 During the trial, Lasky's counsel sought to introduce evidence of Walker's prior record to impeach his credibility. In the ten year period before the trial, Walker had been convicted of two charges of simple assault, four firearms violations, one charge of terroristic threats and nine robberies. Lasky's counsel referred to these convictions in his opening statement. Later, Walker moved to exclude the convictions pursuant to Fed.R.Evid. 609(a)(1). 25 In a two-part ruling, the district court granted Walker's motion with respect to the convictions for assault, firearms violations and terroristic threats, finding that the probative value of the convictions was outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. However, the district court held that, because the crime of robbery involves dishonesty within the meaning of Fed.R.Evid. 609(a)(2), the court was without discretion to weigh the prejudicial effect of the proffered evidence against its value and, therefore, evidence of the [robbery] conviction is automatically admissible for impeachment purposes. App. at 8. 43 Fed.R.Evid. 609 provides, in relevant part: 44 (a) General rule. For the purposes of attacking the credibility of a witness, 45 (1) evidence that a witness other than an accused has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted, subject to Rule 403, if the crime was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year under the law under which the witness was convicted,....; and 46 (2) evidence that any witness has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted if it involved dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment. 47 Fed.R.Evid. 609(a). Therefore, if the prior conviction involved dishonesty or false statements, the conviction is automatically admissible insofar as the district court is without discretion to weigh the prejudicial effect of the proffered evidence against its probative value. Walden v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 126 F.3d 506, 523 (3d Cir.1997). Because Rule 609(a)(2) does not permit the district court to engage in balancing, ... Rule 609(a)(2) must be construed narrowly to apply only to those crimes that bear on a witness' propensity to testify truthfully. Id. (citation omitted). 48 Walker contends that the district court erred by holding that robbery is a crime involving dishonesty, and that the district court therefore erred in allowing counsel to use his robbery convictions for impeachment purposes. 26 In support of that argument, he cites to the original Conference Committee Report which spoke of the types of crimes contemplated by subsection (a)(2): 49 By the phrase dishonesty and false statement the Conference means crimes such as perjury or subornation of perjury, false statement, criminal fraud, embezzlement, or false pretense, or any other offense in the nature of crimen falsi, the commission of which involves some element of deceit, untruthfulness, or falsification bearing on the accused's propensity to testify truthfully. 50 H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 1597, 93d Cong., 2d Sess. 9, reprinted in 1974 U.S.C.C.A.N. p. 7051, 7058, 7103. He then refers to the Advisory Committee note following the 1990 amendment to Rule 609(a)(2) which reads: 51 The Advisory Committee concluded that the Conference Report provides sufficient guidance to trial courts and that no amendment [to the dishonesty and false statement provision] is necessary, notwithstanding some decisions that take an unduly broad view of dishonesty admitting convictions such as for bank robbery or bank larceny. 52 Fed.R.Evid. 609 Advisory Committee Note to 1990 amendment. In light of these statements, Walker submits that crimes involving dishonesty are limited to the types of crimes explicitly detailed in the two statements above and this excludes robbery because it is not a crime involving dishonesty. 53 It is somewhat surprising that we have not yet decided whether robbery involves dishonesty within the meaning of Rule 609(a)(2). However, in a case decided before the effective date of the Federal Rules of Evidence, we did hold that petit larceny is not a crimen falsi crime. In Government of the Virgin Islands v. Toto, 529 F.2d 278 (3d Cir.1976), we wrote: 54 The term crimen falsi has roots in the common law doctrine that persons convicted of certain kinds of crimes were disqualified from testifying. While the doctrine of testimonial disqualification has withered from our law, the term crimen falsi has retained vitality in the context of impeachment. The established law in this circuit is that a witness may be impeached by evidence of a prior conviction only if it is for (a) a felony or (b) a misdemeanor in the nature of crimen falsi. The specific contours of crimen falsi are uncertain. Crimen falsi describes crimes involving, or at least relating to, communicative, often verbal, dishonesty; we have said that they are crimes which touch on the honesty of the witness. For our purposes here, we have no difficulty in accepting the government's formulation of the concept: Although the term 'crimen falsi' has been subject to many definitions, the generally accepted scope of the term would be crimes that are in the nature of perjury, criminal fraud, embezzlement, false pretense or any other offense the commission of which involves some element of untruthfulness, or falsification bearing on the accused's propensity to testify truthfully. Absent special circumstances, as the district court so aptly put it: Petit larceny is just not that. 55 Id. at 281 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). However we also noted that, in certain cases, petit larceny may be a crimen falsi crime. We explained: It is conceivable that a conviction for petit larceny might subsume a crime in the nature of crimen falsi, e.g., `petit' stealing by false pretenses. Id. In a case decided after the effective date of the Federal Rules of Evidence, we held that a crime must involve expressive dishonesty to be admissible under Rule 609(a)(2). In Cree v. Hatcher, 969 F.2d 34, 38 (3d Cir.1992), we stated: The proper test for admissibility under Rule 609(a)(2) does not measure the severity or reprehensibility of the crime, but rather focuses on the witness's propensity for falsehood, deceit or deception. Applying that teaching here, we readily conclude that, although robbery is certainly a very serious crime, it does not involve communicative or expressive dishonesty. Therefore, the district court erred by holding that robbery is a crime involving dishonesty that is automatically admissible under Rule 609(a)(2). 27 56 Of course, that does not end our inquiry. Under Fed.R.Evid. 103(a), admitting Walker's robbery convictions for impeachment is not reversible error unless a substantial right of a party is affected. Our standard of review of a district court's nonconstitutional error allows us to find an error harmless only if it is highly probable that the error did not affect the outcome of the case. McQueeney v. Wilmington Trust Co., 779 F.2d 916, 917 (3d Cir.1985). 57 Not unexpectedly, Walker argues that the admission of his robbery convictions was not harmless error because his credibility was central to his ability to prove his claim that Lasky violated his First and Eighth Amendment rights. He reminds us that he was the only witness who testified that he is a practicing member of the Nation of Islam and that he was engaged in a religious fast when he was forcibly fed. He was also the only witness who testified that, contrary to Lasky's affidavit, he gave a blood and urine sample as ordered by Dr. Young. 28 Finally, his testimony also provided the only evidence that he had never been offered a liquid protein supplement by Lasky. 29 Therefore, according to Walker, the evidence of his robbery convictions significantly undermined his credibility. He argues: the only reasonable explanation for the jury finding that [he] failed to prove he was engaged in a religious fast was that he was not, in their minds, a credible witness. Walker's Br. at 37. 58 Walker stresses that his lack of credibility was the central theme of Lasky's counsel's closing argument. 30 According to Walker, Lasky's counsel argued that Walker's testimony about the religious basis of his fast was simply not credible. Rather, argued Lasky's counsel, Walker just did not want Dr. Young, who examined him daily, to interfere with his hunger strike, and Walker therefore used the magic words religious fast. Walker also contends that Lasky's counsel argued that even though Walker told Dr. Young that he was on a religious fast and Dr. Young noted this in the medical records on August 26, Dr. Young had no independent verification that the fast was religious and that Walker's statement could not be taken at face value. 59 Lastly, and finally, Walker contends that Lasky's counsel told the jury that they needed to consider Walker's credibility while deliberating reminding them that Walker had been convicted of crimes of dishonesty nine times, the robberies. In Walker's telling, because the robbery convictions were central to Lasky's efforts to discredit his testimony, the introduction of the convictions was not harmless. 60 Lasky contends that, given the very limited use of the robbery convictions and the amount of other evidence bearing on Walker's credibility, it is highly improbable that the robbery convictions affected the outcome of Walker's case at all. Moreover, says Lasky, since Walker testified on direct examination that he was residing at SCI-Camp Hill at the time of the incident eight years earlier, and was currently residing at SCI-Pittsburgh, the jury had to have known that Walker had a significant criminal record that included convictions for serious crimes. Further, says Lasky, during cross-examination, Walker mentioned a third prison, SCI-Smithfield, where he had been incarcerated. In Lasky's view, given the small amount of time spent on the actual impeachment and the fact that Walker testified that he had been incarcerated in three different prisons over at least the previous eight years, any prejudice from the robbery convictions was inconsequential. 61 Lasky next refers us to the significant amount of other evidence regarding Walker's credibility. According to Lasky, even Walker's religious motive for fasting is something of a red herring. No mention was made of a religious fast during argument over the preliminary injunction in the state court. In fact, Walker's counsel in the state court said the fast was not religious at all, but was an attempt to focus attention on Walker's then pending litigation. Lasky supports this with evidence that a friend and fellow litigant of Walker's, Darrel Alston, engaged in a hunger strike and was not a member of the Nation of Islam. 62 Lasky cites evidence corroborating his contention that Walker's motives were not religious. As we noted earlier, just before Walker stopped eating, he had an argument with the guards over access to his legal materials. He was written up for misconduct and put on further restriction. Walker had five civil and two criminal cases pending at the time, and access to his legal materials was therefore important to him. Prison policy allowed only one box of legal materials in his cell at any one time, and the rest had to be kept in storage. 31 Lasky claims this policy was the reason for the argument and Walker went on a hunger strike in protest, that he now seeks to redefine as a religious fast. 63 Lasky notes the conflicting evidence about when Walker would fast, the number of years he had engaged in fasts and the average duration of his fasts. The evidence of fasting was first once or twice a month, then every weekend, then for three days or as long as fifteen days. Walker's trial testimony was different than his deposition, and that was different than allegations in his amended complaint. There was also a discrepancy about when Walker became a member of the Nation of Islam. 64 Walker testified on direct examination that he was forced to eat and drink milk which made him ill. He also testified that he was a vegetarian, but admitted on cross-examination that he ate meat, just not red meat, and never notified the prison that he was vegetarian although he claims his medical records state that he was. He testified that he could not have milk for health reasons, but on cross-examination admitted that no one ever told him that he was lactose intolerant. In fact, argues Lasky, there was a video of Walker voluntarily drinking milk with breakfast. Not only did Walker not get sick, he asked for more milk. Finally, Walker testified that he told Lasky and the prison officials that he would eat, but later admitted that he had not eaten when given the opportunity. 65 According to Lasky, given this stream of contradictions, the admission of the robbery convictions was harmless. Lasky argues: It is counterintuitive to think that the passing reference to Mr. Walker's robbery convictions, in light of the jury's knowledge of three prison stays over at least the past eight years, affected the outcome in light of all of the other evidence elicited at trial. Lasky's Br. at 24. We agree. Walker's own testimony that he had been incarcerated in three state prisons certainly informed the jury that he had a substantial criminal record. There was also a substantial amount of other evidence that affected Walker's credibility as noted above. Therefore, it is highly improbable that the error in admitting the robbery convictions had an impact on the outcome of the trial. 32 66