Court Opinion

ID: 9845184
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:16:23.958395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:53.976381
License: Public Domain

Hale, C.J.
(concurring in part) — I have signed the court’s opinion and concur in all of it except that part which purports to predict a future overruling of Lankford v. Tombari, 35 Wn.2d 412, 213 P.2d 627, 19 A.L.R.2d 462 (1950), a case which held that proof of drug addiction is relevant to credibility. The rule admitting such evidence cuts both ways, and it is available to both defense and prosecution and I think should be retained. When the prosecution is compelled by the force of circumstances to rely upon the testimony of narcotic addicts to establish guilt, the defendant in all fairness should be permitted to show the addiction as a factor in assessing credibility.
In tampering with the Lankford v. Tombari rule, the court, I think, makes four errors: First, it overrules a long-established precedent when it need not do so in order to reach an otherwise sound decision; second, it predicts the future actions of this court on a question of law not now before it; third, it suggests that proof of drug addiction may be rendered relevant and admissible if the court will only *741halt the trial and take a collateral excursion into the field of medicine and psychology to try the general issue of drug addiction as it affects one’s veracity; and fourth, it departs from the long-established common-law technique of handling appeals in order to prophesy that this court will, when the point is directly in issue, categorically hold inadmissible evidence of drug addiction unless a collateral trial is held, and it implies that in a future case proof of drug addiction must be excluded unless the evidence preponderates in the particular case on trial that drug addicts are inclined to falsehood. When the court ruled in the instant case that proof of defendant’s drug addiction became relevant and admissible because she voluntarily put her character in issue, that should have been the end of the matter. Its discussion of the ramification of Lankford v. Tombari, supra, both was unnecessary to a decision in this case and will probably lead to a wrong conclusion when the point is examined again.
If the facts of this case, however, can be said to necessarily evoke a discussion of the Lankford v. Tombari precedent, requiring that it either be followed or overruled in order to reach a decision in the instant case, I would adhere to Lankford because, in my judgment, it declares the better rule. To require expert testimony that drug addiction does affect one’s truthfulness before allowing evidence of it creates a collateral issue of fact not germane to the genuine issues on trial, and substitutes the opinion of experts for the commonsense of the jury. It is the court’s prerogative to rule upon the admissibility of evidence and the jury’s to decide its weight and effect; the court rules as a matter of law and the jury decides as a matter of fact. Now the court converts an issue of law into an issue of fact, a process which will frequently, I think, produce ludicrous results. In some cases, in the same courthouse, the evidence, because of expert testimony, will be rendered admissible while across the hall the same issue will be resolved differently as a matter of fact and the identical evidence rendered inadmissible.
*742This court’s opinion in Lankford that proof of drug addiction is admissible as a matter of law left to the jury to decide what weight, if any, should be given it. That proposition, I think, rests on a sound rationale, authoritatively supported. 3A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 934 (Chadbourn rev. 1970), states the principle correctly:
Any diseased impairment of the testimonial powers, arising from whatever source, ought also to be considered:
Accordingly, the morphine or other drug habit, in that it may have had such an effect, should be received.
(Footnote omitted.)
The rule allowing proof of drug addiction as a factor to be weighed in assessing credibility has withstood the test of time. For example, in 1916, the Supreme Court of Idaho, in a widely cited opinion, passed directly upon the issue when a dying declaration was put in evidence in a murder prosecution. The victim, a Chinese unfamiliar with the English language, had made the dying declaration in Chinese. It was held admissible when introduced through an interpreter. To test the credibility and competency of the witness who had related the declaration, defendant asked on cross-examination, “Isn’t it a fact that you are an habitual user of opium?” The trial court sustained an objection to the question. On defendant’s appeal, however, the Supreme Court of Idaho reversed, holding that evidence of the fact that the witness was an opium user was admissible as relevant to his competency and credibility, saying:
We believe it will be admitted that habitual users of opium or other like narcotics, become notorious liars.
. . . But we do mean to hold that the habitual use of morphine, cocaine and other like narcotics, which inevitably tend to impair the mind, destroy the memory and moral character of a witness, may be shown for the purpose of affecting his credibility or the weight that should be given to his testimony.
*743State v. Fong Loon, 29 Idaho 248, 258-60, 158 P. 233 (1916). Accord, Chicago & N.W. Ry. v. McKenna, 74 F.2d 155 (8th Cir. 1934); Wilson v. Thurston Nat’l Ins. Co., 251 Ark. 929, 475 S.W.2d 881 (1972).
Accordingly, I think we should leave well enough alone. Lankford v. Tombari, supra, is not now before us and I would not gratuitously repudiate it either collaterally or directly.
Hamilton, J., concurs with Hale, C. J.