Court Opinion

ID: 9455895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:36:43.743037+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:46.882338
License: Public Domain

KILEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in Judge Eschbach’s opinion for the court in the above cause, although I wish to comment below on the claim that the district court erred in permitting cross-examination of Escobe-do with respect to his prior convictions for similar narcotic offenses. Escobedo does not claim that the court committed constitutional error in its ruling and does not contend that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction. Under these circumstances I see no valid reason for finding, if error was committed in the ruling, that reversal is compelled.
However, I hesitate to agree that there is an “established rule” in this circuit which contemplates in all cases as a mere exercise of discretion, use of prior convictions for impeachment purposes. It is true that two judges of this court participated in United States v. Morefield, 411 F.2d 1186 (7th Cir. 1969), and three other judges of this court in United States v. Cox, 428 F.2d 683, No. 17484, 7th Cir., June 16, 1970, and presumably the five agreed to the general rule that evidence of a prior conviction is per se relevant to credibility. This is not, however, an established rule in the sense that a majority of active judges announced that rule as the rule of this circuit.
In my view there may well be cases in which reversible constitutional error may be committed by a trial judge in exercising his discretion with respect to impeaching testimony on the ground of prior conviction. Furthermore, with deference to the panel of this court in Cox, I think we should not reject, without further consideration, the “rule of thumb” which the District of Columbia Circuit has adopted and which the Second Circuit will apparently follow.
The District of Columbia Circuit’s “rule of thumb” would limit the introduction of evidence of prior convictions to crimen falsi — “crimes involving] the element of falsehood. * * *” Black’s Dictionary, 4th Ed.1 I must disagree with the court’s view in Cox that this rule does not provide a “manifestly satisfactory resolution” of the problem of impeachment by prior conviction. It should be noted in this context that in More field, which was cited with approval in Cox 2 and by the majority opinion in this case, the court referred to the “trial court [’s] thoughtful exercise of discretion” in prohibiting proof of prior robbery, breaking and entering, and theft convictions at Morefield’s trial for robbery of a federal bank. The effect of the prohibition was to admit only the prior crimen falsi offenses bearing on Morefield’s credibility.
It is likely that the court in Morefield considered the trial court “thoughtful” in its ruling because the prior offenses were similar. Gordon v. United States, 127 U.S.App.D.C. 343, 383 F.2d 936, *22939-940 (1967). But it might well be that the trial court would have been just as “thoughtful” in prohibiting the proof of those offenses because the proof would shed no light on whether More-field was telling the truth in defending the charge subject of this court’s opinion. It could be that evidence of prior convictions for offenses similar to those on trial — not within the crimen falsi— should be excluded on the grounds that such evidence would more likely lead a jury to believe that because a defendant committed the prior similar offenses he committed the one with which he was charged, rather than that his testimony should be discounted because the proof of the prior convictions rendered him less credible than he otherwise would have been.
The holding implicit in the majority opinion is that prior convictions for substantially the same crimes may be admitted to impeach a defendant. The further implication is that the ruling would be an exercise of discretion. However, in footnote 5 the majority opinion seems to indicate that, although the decision is that the district court did not abuse its discretion, this court rejects the view that it is in the trial court’s discretion to limit the introduction into evidence of prior convictions. But in the Cox decision, we stated that the trial judge does have this discretion: “Individual judges may prefer imposing limitations upon such impeachment in the exercise of their discretionary powers over the introduction of relevant evidence. This may vary according to the facts at issue and the nature of the convictions offered for impeachment.” Moreover, in Morefield we approved the trial judge’s exclusion of proof of prior convictions as a “thoughtful” exercise of the court’s discretion.
At this writing I favor a rule which would limit discretionary admission of prior conviction evidence — for impeachment — substantially by the “rule of thumb” of the District of Columbia Circuit.

. The “rule of thumb” is stated in United States v. Cox, 428 F.2d 683, No. 17484, 7th Cir., June 16, 1970, n. 5, as follows: “The rule of thumb * * * is that only convictions for acts of deceit, fraud, cheating, stealing and others resting on dishonest conduct should be admitted to test credibility, and even they should be excluded if stale and followed by a legally blameless life.”

. In Cox. the defendant sought, before trial, an order limiting the government’s ability to impeach Cox by proof of prior felony convictions. The record on appeal failed to disclose the particular felony convictions which defendant sought to exclude and the defendant himself did not testify at trial. Thus, the issue before this court was not squarely before the court in Cox.