Court Opinion

ID: 9517342
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:13:42.918207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:52:53.934882
License: Public Domain

T. E. Brennan, J.
(dissenting). I stand for reversal.
At common law, a person convicted of infamous crime was incompetent to testify as a witness.
By statute in Michigan,* this common law disability was abrogated. That statute provided, however, that “such * * * conviction of crime, may be shown for the purpose of drawing in question the credibility of such witness * * * .”
There was never any common law rule that non-infamous crimes or petty offenses could be shown to affect the credibility of a witness. Nor is there any logic in the proposition that a traffic violator is a liar. The relationship between conviction of crime and credibility is not based in logic; it is founded upon legislative fiat. The right to show prior convictions as affecting credibility is only as *616broad as the statute makes it; and the statute is only as broad as the former common law disability of a witness. It follows that only those infamous crimes, which, at common law, would have disqualified the witness, may be shown as affecting his credibility.

 MCLA §§ 600.2158, 600.2159 (Stat Ann 1962 Rev §§ 27A.2158, 27A.2159).