Court Opinion

ID: 9454273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:41:55.909646+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:03.215079
License: Public Domain

*165ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
ORIE L. PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting from the order denying a petition for rehearing.
On November 22,1965, Buchanan, then a police officer of the City of Denver, Colorado, shot Sanders while endeavoring to place him under arrest. The bullet passed through both of Sanders’s legs and caused severe and permanent injuries to him.
Sanders brought this action against Buchanan to recover damages for such injuries, grounded on the claim that Buchanan used excessive and unnecessary force in effecting the arrest. From a judgment on a jury verdict in favor of Buchanan, Sanders appealed. This court affirmed. Sanders filed a petition for rehearing. A majority of the court which sat on the appeal has denied the petition. Believing that the petition should be granted, the judgment reversed, and a new trial ordered, I respectfully dissent from the order denying the petition.
At the commencement of the trial and before any evidence was introduced, it was stipulated that Buchanan had probable cause for arresting Sanders. Therefore, if there were any issues in the case as to probable cause for arrest, false arrest, or false imprisonment, they were effectively eliminated from the case, and the sole issue to be tried was whether Buchanan used excessive or unreasonable force in making the arrest. Specifically, as stated by the court in its charge to the jury, it was whether Buchanan shot Sanders in self-defense.
At the trial, Sanders testified as a witness in his own behalf. Over objection, counsel for Buchanan was permitted to ask Sanders whether at times prior to the night of the arrest he had been in designated vicinities and had engaged in certain stated acts. Sanders answered the questions in the negative. Over timely and proper objection, counsel for Buchanan was permitted to introduce evidence of witnesses who testified that Sanders had, in fact, been in such vicinities on a number of occasions and at different times had committed such acts.
Over like objection, counsel for Buchanan in his argument to the jury was permitted to comment on the evidence as to Sanders being in such vicinities and committing such acts, and the court in ruling on the objection to such argument stated, in effect, that it was admitted that Sanders had been convicted of vagrancy. I find no basis whatever in the record for such a statement by the court.
Such inquiries, evidence, and argument, augmented by the statement of the court, tended to create in the minds of the jury that Sanders was a habitual night prowler, window-peeper, and vagrant. They placed him in a very unfavorable light before the jury, and were highly prejudicial. Moreover, it may be stated parenthetically that at the time he fired the shot and arrested Sanders, Buchanan had no knowledge of any misconduct on the part of Sanders prior to the night of the arrest, if in fact any misconduct had occurred.
The inquiries, the evidence, and the comments made in argument related wholly to collateral matters, and were clearly not material to any issue at the trial. I digress to state that Sanders offered no evidence of his good character or his reputation for truth and veracity. Since such inquiries related wholly to collateral matters, Buchanan was bound by the answers of Sanders thereto, and impeachment by evidence contradicting such answers was improper and highly prejudicial. “Impeachment by contradiction is not permitted on collateral matters.”1
Even if Sanders had been convicted of vagrancy, evidence thereof would not *166have been admissible to impeach him, because vagrancy is not a felonious or infamous crime.
For the reasons stated, I dissent from the denial of the petition for rehearing.

. Head v. Halliburton Oilwell Cementing Company, 5 Cir., 370 F.2d 545, 546 ; 3 Wigmore on Evidence, 3d ed., § 1003; Coulston v. United States, 10 Cir., 51 F.2d 178, 181.