Court Opinion

ID: 9675995
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:11:40.852039+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:42.377147
License: Public Domain

TOMLJANOVICH, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I do not quarrel with the majority’s computation of time in concluding the 1984 conviction is not stale under Minn. R. Evid. 609(b).
However, in analyzing this under State v. Jones, 271 N.W.2d 584 (Minn.1978), I cannot help but conclude that evidence of the 1984 crime is far more prejudicial than probative.
It is not enough to conclude that because we can construe the time limits of Minn. R. Evid. 609(b) to include the 1984 crime, it should come in. A crime that is over 10 years old surely has limited value in assisting the jury in assessing the credibility of a witness.
The 1984 conviction should have been excluded because of its similarity to the present offense. As the prosecutor herself argued in her motion in limine to admit the 1984 conviction as “Spreigl” evidence, the crimes were somewhat similar because “both victims were young, underage females.” I believe that is the same analysis a jury will make. Surely they will not draw a distinction between having sex with a 5- to 7-year-old in this case and a 14-year-old in the 1984 case. The jurors would simply conclude Ihnot is a sex offender who preys on underage girls. The trial court also suggested that the jurors would not find the crimes similar because the 1984 conviction was for criminal sexual conduct in the third degree and the present crime of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. I don’t believe jurors make such fine distinctions when using the conviction for impeachment.
Surely the jurors would have had an adequate picture of the “whole person” and would have been able to judge Mr. Ihnot’s credibility taking into account the other two convictions without the more prejudicial 1984 conviction.
The fact that credibility of the complainant and the defendant was so crucial in this case should make us even more careful to assure that the jury does not have before it a crime that is so old as to have limited value in determining credibility and so similar to the charged offense as to have enormous potential for prejudice.
I would remand for a new trial.