Court Opinion

ID: 9859631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 22:13:36.175707+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:59:01.812587
License: Public Domain

Weintbaub, C. J.
(concurring). I join in the opinion of Mr. Justice Erancis and add some remarks in support of it.
Under our statute, N. J. S. 2A:81-12, the credibility of a witness may be questioned by proof of conviction of any crime. The statute does not contain a limitation based upon the age of the conviction, and in the nature of the subject, the omission must be deemed to be deliberate rather than an oversight, especially since the Legislature elsewhere dealt expressly with expungement of convictions after the expiration of a specified period of time (10 years). N. J. S. 2A:164-28.
As Mr. Justice Erancis points out, the statute with which we are here concerned, N. J. S. 2A:81-12, cannot be read to *144say expressly that a conviction may be proved only in a trial judge’s discretion. If the statute could be so read, the judge’s consideration would not be limited to the age of the judgment, but rather would embrace any factor one could reasonably contend should bear upon admissibility. That is the reach of Luck v. United States, 121 U. S. App. D. C. 151, 348 F. 2d 763 (D. C. Cir. 1965). Our statute has never been thought thus to leave the subject with the trial judge.
The question then is whether, notwithstanding the absolute phrasing of the statute, we should subject it to a time limitation which will fluctuate upon some indefinable basis in the “discretion” of each trial judge. I think to do so would probably conflict with the intent of the Legislature,1 but that consideration aside, I see no utility in the proposal. I think it will induce a great deal of controversy with no perceptible gain.
The issue is not whether a conviction may be so old as to have no probative force whatever and hence be immaterial. Rather the proposition advanced is that notwithstanding the continued probative force of a conviction, a trial judge may exclude it because of some capacity for prejudice which supposedly becomes overriding with the passage of time. The concept we are asked to invoke is summarized in Rule 45 of the proposed Uniform Rules of Evidence:
“Except as in these rules otherwise provided, the judge may in his discretion exclude evidence if he finds that its probative value is substantially outweighed by the risk that its admission will (a) necessitate undue consumption of time, or (b) create substantial danger of undue prejudice or of confusing the issues or of misleading the jury, or (c) unfairly and harmfully surprise a party who has not had reasonable opportunity to anticipate that such evidence would be offered.”
We are not concerned with (a) or (e), since obviously proof of conviction involves no undue consumption of time *145or element of surprise. Nor are we concerned with so much of (b) as speaks of confusion of issues or misleading the jury. We are concerned only with the danger of undue prejudice. We must therefore identify the “probative value” of the fact of conviction and then decide whether that “probative value” is “substantially outweighed by the risk of * * * substantial danger of prejudice.”
N. J. S. 2A:81-12 embodies a widespread belief that conviction for crime has “probative value” with respect to the credibility of a witness. The possibility of prejudice inheres in the capacity of a conviction to affect the determination as to guilt, particularly if the conviction and the- indictment being tried are for the same type of offense. Actually it would not be irrational to admit proof of prior conviction upon the issue of guilt of a like crime. A prior conviction may well aid in the interpretation of circumstances. We know that a prior conviction is a legitimate fact in an inquiry into probable cause, and we know too that a good policeman will consider prior convictions in deciding who should be thought a possible suspect. Nonetheless, with respect to the trial itself, it is our policy to eliminate the fact of conviction from the inquiry into guilt and to limit the conviction to the question of the credibility of the accused or other witness.
We must start with the undeniable proposition that when the possibility of prejudice is greatest, it will not so overwhelm the probative value of the conviction as to warrant its exclusion. Specifically, if the conviction is fresh and is for the same species of crime involved in the trial and thus the capacity for prejudice is at its maximum, proof of the conviction will be received. That of course is the plain policy decision which underlies the statutory judgment that a conviction may be shown. In the words of Rule 45, the risk of undue prejudice does not substantially outweigh the probative value of the proof. Stoelting v. Hauck, 32 N. J. 87, 103-105 (1960).
*146Yet it is claimed that somehow the passage of time upsets the scale. I agree that time diminishes the probative value of a conviction, but I think it equally clear that time also reduces the risk of prejudice. I find it hard to believe that a conviction a juror finds too old to bear upon credibility will still be young enough to seduce him upon the issue of guilt.
In any event, I think the slender possibility of prejudice is outweighed by the inutility of a rule committing the subject to the “discretion” of a trial judge. The factors that would come into play are many. There is the age of the offense, the age of the offender, and the sentence imposed. The nature of the offense would be pertinent, and similarity with the subject matter of the trial could complicate that consideration. Next, there could be an inquiry into the intervening behavior of the accused. In jurisdictions which exclude a conviction because of remoteness in time, apparently consideration will be given to the accused’s “conduct subsequent to the conviction.” 98 C. J. S. Witnesses § 507(d), p. 413. Thus in Pedorella v. Hoffman, 91 R. I. 487, 165 A. 2d 721 (Sup. Ct. 1960), the court observed that “In the present instance, after considering the nature of the offense against the United States for which Hoffman was convicted and his subsequent delinquency in observing his obligations under the federal revenue laws, we do not think the trial justice abused his discretion” in overruling the objection (165 A. 2d, at p. 724; emphasis mine). But our practice does not permit a ranging inquiry into collateral misbehavior unless it is evidenced by conviction for crime, and indeed in part to avoid the very distraction and prejudice with which Rule 45 is concerned. In Luck v. United States, supra, 348 F. 2d 763, the court2 suggested as relevant an additional factor which frankly I find quite elusive, *147saying the judge should weigh “above all, the extent to which it is more important to the search for truth in a particular case for the jury to hear the defendant’s story than to know of a prior conviction.” (348 F. 2d, p. 769; italics mine.) I would suppose that upon that approach the trial judge might be unable to make an evaluation until virtually the end of a trial, too late to aid the defendant who would like to know at the outset what to expect.
The discretionary approach must lead to irreconcilable results at the trial level, reflecting each judge’s opinion of the statutory policy. It will also spawn a great deal of appellate controversy. The large number of reported opinions in Texas, where the discretionary rule obtains, suggests that prospect. See 70 C. J., Witnesses, § 1057, p. 854, n. 40; 98 C. J. S. Witnesses § 507 d, pp. 412-413. If that were the only fair way to deal with the problem, the disadvantages would be tolerable. But there is no convincing reason to take the subject from the jury. The jury is best situated to evaluate the conviction in the light of the entire trial record. If, as I have said, we leave the subject with the jury when the conviction is a recent one and the possibility of prejudice is therefore the greatest, we should not doubt the jury’s capacity to handle the subject when the likelihood of prejudice has itself receded with time.
Ultimately we come to an old topic—the ability of a jury to obey a cautionary instruction. Courts are ambivalent in their estimate of the intelligence of the layman, summoning one line of cases and then another to support the varying moods of their decisions. It seems to me that of the many situations in which a jriror’s capacity to obey a judge’s charge might be debated, the situation before us is one in which we should have little trouble. Twelve laymen are as able as any of us to deal with the problem of an aging conviction. To this we should add, as Mr. Justice Erancis points out, the restraint upon counsel which inheres in the danger of a boomerang if the conviction is of no value. I think it is better to permit the trial judge to exercise his *148discretion by commenting upon the age of the conviction in his charge to the jury, than to invite debate as to whether a judge should or should not have barred a conviction from the ease upon some unarticulated process of evaluation.
About a third of the jurisdictions have dealt with the problem, and they are about evenly divided. As to some which recognize a discretion to exclude, it is not clear whether, as in Luck v. United States, supra, 348 F. 2d 763, the whole subject of admissibility of convictions reposes in a judge’s discretion, rather than only the matter of age. In others it is not clear whether the exclusion rests upon a finding that the conviction was so old that it had no probative force rather than upon a finding that a continuing probative value was outweighed by the danger of prejudice.’ Surely there is no trend toward the approach we are rejecting.

 The Massachusetts statute, which initially read like ours, was amended to contain a time limitation. See Commonwealth v. Cohen, 234 Mass. 76, 125 N. E. 148 (Sup. Jud. Ct. 1919).

 Luck does not mention an earlier opinion of the same court which holds that age bears on weight and not on admissibility. Murray v. United States, 53 App. D. C. 119, 288 F. 1008, 1014 (D. C. Cir. 1923), cert. denied, 262 U. S. 757, 43 S. Ct. 703, 67 L. Ed. 1218 (1923).