Opinion ID: 507338
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Prior Heroin Conviction

Text: 25 Before testifying on her own behalf, Wallace unsuccessfully moved to prohibit the government from impeaching her with evidence of a 1970 heroin trafficking conviction. 11 Wallace contends that the district court improperly denied her motion because: (1) the heroin conviction was time-barred under Rule 609(b), and (2) the district court incorrectly balanced the factors involved in determining the probative value versus prejudicial effect of the prior conviction. We review the district court's denial of an in limine motion for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Bagley, 772 F.2d 482, 487 (9th Cir.1985). 26 Although Wallace's 1970 heroin conviction was more than ten years old, her conviction in 1977 for perjury resulted in a revocation of her parole for the 1970 heroin conviction and her reconfinement in 1977, less than ten years before trial. The district court admitted the heroin conviction, apparently relying on our decision in United States v. McClintock, 748 F.2d 1278 (9th Cir.1984), to conclude that appellant's reconfinement in 1977 upon revocation of her parole was confinement imposed for [the original] conviction which tolled the ten-year limit of Fed.R.Evid. 609(b). In McClintock, the court affirmed the admission for impeachment purposes of a mail fraud conviction that was more than ten years old, because the defendant's subsequent confinement on probation revocation constituted confinement for the original conviction under Rule 609(b). The court relied on the fact that defendant's probation was revoked for violation of a substantive condition--his failure to refrain from engaging professionally in charitable fund raising--that directly paralleled his original crime--engaging professionally in fraudulent charitable fund raising. 748 F.2d at 1288. The McClintock court conspicuously declined to endorse a broad rule that probation or parole revocations always constitute confinement for the original conviction for Rule 609(b) purposes, and we decline to extend McClintock here. Because Wallace's perjury conviction was not substantively related or parallel to the original heroin conviction, we conclude that the revocation of Wallace's parole based on the perjury charge does not constitute confinement for the original heroin conviction tolling the ten-year limit of Rule 609(b). 27 Additionally, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion in admitting the heroin conviction under the criteria of Rule 609(a). In balancing the probative value against the prejudicial effect of a prior conviction, this Circuit has stated five factors that the district court should consider. 12 United States v. Givens, 767 F.2d 574, 579 & n. 2 (9th Cir.1985). Though we do not require the trial judge to state his or her analysis of each of the five factors with special precision the record should reveal, at a minimum, that the trial judge was aware of the requirements of Rule 609(a)(1). Id. at 579-80. In this case the district court considered expressly only two of the five factors. As to one of the factors it considered, the district court incorrectly assumed that the similarity of the prior conviction and the present charges weighed in favor of admissibility. 13 In Bagley, we stated: 28 To allow evidence of a prior conviction of the very crime for which a defendant is on trial may be devastating in its potential impact on a jury ... [W]here ... the prior conviction is sufficiently similar to the crime charged, there is a substantial risk that all exculpatory evidence will be overwhelmed by a jury's fixation on the human tendency to draw a conclusion which is impermissible in law: because he did it before, he must have done it again. 29 772 F.2d at 488. That risk was clearly present in this case, especially where appellant Wallace's prior perjury conviction was already available for impeachment purposes. 14 The district court abused its discretion in denying Wallace's motion to exclude her prior heroin conviction.