Opinion ID: 201867
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Prior Convictions.

Text: 43 The appellant also challenges the district court's admission of evidence of his three prior convictions. The applicable rule provides that if a criminal defendant elects to testify, evidence that he has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison shall be admitted if the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect to the accused. Fed.R.Evid. 609(a)(1). In general — there are exceptions, but none is relevant here — such evidence is only admissible if the convictions in question are less than ten years old. See Fed.R.Evid. 609(b). 44 By its terms, Rule 609(a) demands that the trial court construct a balance. We review a trial court's construction of this balance (i.e., its ruling admitting or excluding Rule 609 evidence) for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Powell, 50 F.3d 94, 102 (1st Cir.1995). 45 The three prior convictions here at issue were all felony drug-trafficking convictions. Though somewhat remote in time from the date of the instant offenses — all three convictions occurred in 1994 — they were within the ten-year window framed by Rule 609(b). The question, then, is whether the district court abused its discretion in determining that the probative value of those convictions for impeachment purposes outweighed their prejudicial effects. 46 The appellant suggests that our decision in United States v. Tavares, 21 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.1994) (en banc), bears on this question. In Tavares, we held that once a defendant who is facing a felon-in-possession charge has stipulated to the fact of a preexisting felony conviction, the government may not introduce evidence as to the nature of that conviction for the purpose of establishing the felon element of the charge. Id. at 5. Even when the defendant has so stipulated, however, the government still may introduce evidence of prior felony convictions for impeachment purposes if the defendant elects to testify. See United States v. Tracy, 36 F.3d 187, 191-92 (1st Cir.1994). 47 In this instance, the appellant stipulated that he previously had been found guilty of a felony. He subsequently chose to testify in his own defense. The government then sought to discredit that testimony by introducing the three prior convictions for impeachment purposes. Given this scenario, Tavares is of little utility. 48 We turn now to the disputed ruling. Although the appellant questions how past crimes that do not directly involve dishonesty or fraud are relevant to credibility, our case law long has recognized that Rule 609 represents a valid legislative judgment that such convictions do have some probative value for impeachment purposes. See United States v. Norton, 26 F.3d 240, 243 (1st Cir.1994); United States v. Oakes, 565 F.2d 170, 172 (1st Cir.1977). The nature of the underlying felony generally goes not to its admissibility per se but, rather, to its weight in the balancing of probative worth and prejudicial impact. See 4 Jack B. Weinstein & Margaret A. Berger, Weinstein's Federal Evidence § 609.05[3][b] (2d ed.2005) (collecting cases). 49 A wide array of factors may be considered when calibrating the Rule 609 scales. Without limiting the generality of that statement, these may include (i) the impeachment value of the particular convictions; (ii) their immediacy or remoteness (even though they are within the ten-year window); (iii) the degree of potential prejudice that they portend; (iv) the importance of the defendant's testimony; and (v) the salience of the credibility issue in the circumstances of the particular case. See, e.g., United States v. Smith, 131 F.3d 685, 687 (7th Cir.1997); United States v. Jackson, 627 F.2d 1198, 1209 (D.C.Cir.1980). 50 In this case, several of these factors cut in favor of admissibility. Prior drug-trafficking crimes are generally viewed as having some bearing on veracity. See, e.g., United States v. Gant, 396 F.3d 906, 909-10 (7th Cir.2005) (finding drug-trafficking offense probative of credibility in gun possession case); United States v. Lattner, 385 F.3d 947, 961 (6th Cir.2004) (similar). The offenses underlying the appellant's prior convictions are not similar to the offenses charged in this case. That is relevant because convictions for dissimilar crimes are customarily thought to be less prejudicial than convictions for similar crimes (which may run a risk of implying a propensity to commit the crime). See, e.g., United States v. Montgomery, 390 F.3d 1013, 1016 (7th Cir.2004); Jackson, 627 F.2d at 1210. Perhaps most important, this case hinged on a credibility choice; the jury had to decide whether to believe the appellant or the police officers. The salience of the credibility issue weighs in favor of admitting the prior convictions. See United States v. Pritchard, 973 F.2d 905, 909 (11th Cir.1992); Oakes, 565 F.2d at 173. 51 To be sure, other factors (e.g., remoteness) weigh against admissibility. Taking the panoply of circumstances as a whole, however, the decision to accept or reject the proffer fell well within the encincture of the district court's discretion. Where the circumstances can fairly support a decision either to admit or to exclude particular evidence, it is not the proper province of an appellate court to second-guess the trial court's on-the-spot judgment. Cf. Freeman v. Package Mach. Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1340 (1st Cir.1988) (observing, with respect to Rule 403 balancing, that [o]nly rarely — and in extraordinarily compelling circumstances — will we, from the vista of a cold appellate record, reverse a district court's on-the-spot judgment concerning the relative weighing of probative value and unfair effect). So it is here. 6 52 The appellant makes two subsidiary arguments that warrant brief comment. First, he assigns error to the district court's failure to spell out its exposition of the Rule 609(a) balancing test. Although it would have been helpful for the court to make a detailed balancing analysis on the record, the court was not required to do so. See United States v. De La Cruz, 902 F.2d 121, 123 (1st Cir.1990). Moreover, the absence of express findings is less troublesome where, as here, the record reflects the court's keen awareness of its duty to balance probative value against prejudicial effect and its discussion of the issue with counsel. 53 Second, the appellant, citing Powell, argues that the lower court erred in allowing the government to describe the nature of the prior felony convictions by using the title of each crime. In Powell, we observed that the practice of allowing the government to ask about the number of felonies, but not to describe their nature, was a fair way to help balance probative value against prejudicial impact. 56 F.3d at 102. Although Powell endorses the admission of Rule 609(a) evidence in this truncated manner, it in no way requires the use of such a technique. Here, moreover, the appellant's attempt to raise this argument stands on noticeably shaky ground: the district court expressly offered him the chance to have only the number of felonies recounted, but he eschewed the opportunity.