Court Opinion

ID: 9603570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:08:00.624508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:35.888277
License: Public Domain

PLANK, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I concur with Parts II and III of the majority opinion, I respectfully dissent from Part I thereof because I believe that the exclusion of the prior felony conviction was not harmless error.
Since the statute allowed admission of a felony conviction arising out of the same transaction, there was no discretion to preclude use of the prior felony conviction to impeach Buhring’s credibility. See People v. Yeager, 182 Colo. 397, 513 P.2d 1057 (1973); People v. Wright, 678 P.2d 1072 (Colo.App.1984). The majority recognizes this principle, but it nevertheless concludes that the trial court’s disregard of it here constitutes only harmless error. In my view, reversal of the judgment is mandated because the appellants were denied a substantial right expressly provided by statute.
Moreover, the majority has usurped the function of the jury by deciding that the exclusion of the conviction would have had no impact on the outcome of the trial. In fact, Buhring’s testimony was important to several contested issues before the jury. Because Buhring testified that he could remember only the altercation with Clark *270and fragmentary events over the following days, the jury had to evaluate his claim of selective memory, particularly as it related to his fight with Montoya and the shooting. Moreover, as the majority admits, Buhring provided extensive evidence about his injuries and the construction of a mock-up exhibit of the V.F.W. Hall. His credibility therefore was very much an issue for evaluation by the jury, and evidence of a prior felony, conviction could have had a significant impact upon that evaluation.
Rarely should evidence directly affecting the credibility of a party be excluded. Certainly such evidence should not have been excluded here where $400,000 in damages were assessed based partly, at least, on the testimony of Buhring.
I would reverse the judgment and remand for new trial.