Court Opinion

ID: 9474185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:50:10.407181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:56.827008
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. In my view, not only is the issue appealable, but the trial court clearly erred in denying Vega’s motion to exclude evidence of a four-year old conviction for child abuse.
I recognize that this Court held in United States v. Johnson, 720 F.2d 519, 522 (8th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1036, 104 S.Ct. 1310, 79 L.Ed.2d 707 (1984) and United States v. Cobb, 588 F.2d 607, 613 (8th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 947, 99 S.Ct. 1426, 59 L.Ed.2d 636 (1979) that a defendant waives his right to object on appeal to a pretrial ruling permitting the use of a prior conviction by testifying to the prior conviction on direct examination, but I doubt the applicability of those cases to this situation. In both Johnson and Cobb, the trial judge had made a preliminary pretrial decision to admit evidence of prior convictions. Both defendants then introduced the convictions themselves, without allowing the court to make a more timely ruling after the trial had developed. *793Here, however, the district court took the pretrial motion under advisement and did not rule on it until after the government had presented its case in chief. Thus this ruling was final and it made no difference which party brought out the conviction. I would hold that the trial court’s denial of Vega’s motion in limine is properly before this Court.
Moreover, I think it is clear that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting the conviction. First, the court did not articulate its reasons for concluding that the probative value of the conviction outweighed its prejudicial effect. More importantly, the record does, not support the conclusion. The prejudicial value of such an emotionally charged conviction far outweighed its probative value. In light of the trial court’s ruling, the defendant had no alternative but to attempt to soften the impact of the conviction by testifying with respect to it in her direct examination. In my view, she should not have been placed in that position.