Court Opinion

ID: 9455682
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:29:28.288233+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:41.394140
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
An amplification of the facts will be helpful to clarify my point of disagree*1235ment with the majority. When defense counsel raised the Luck point,1 the trial court inquired whether the prosecuting attorney had “any cases involving dishonesty, larceny, perjuries, Title 18, Section 1001, anything like that ?” Informed of the appellant’s drug record, the court replied, “I am not too much concerned about narcotics violations,” and observed that Brooke v. United States2 was the “only case I know off-hand in which the Court of Appeals has ruled it was not error for the Government * * * to question a defendant about a narcotics conviction.”3 But the court correctly distinguished Brooke from the present ease, in that “there was somebody else there to tell Brooke’s story” to the jury, while McIntosh was the only defense witness in the instant trial. Although the Government argued at length for admission of the narcotics violation, the court clearly indicated a reluctance to admit that conviction4 and asked the prosecutor whether there was “anything else besides [the] narcotics conviction.” The prosecutor cited appellant’s 1955 conviction for larceny after trust, to which defense counsel objected as being “fairly old.” The court inquired whether appellant’s life had been “legally blameless” since 1955, and the defense counsel, in light of the narcotics violation, admitted that it had not.
At this point, the trial judge announced to the prosecutor:
I don’t believe in weighing down the record with evidence of prior criminal convictions because that too much leads a jury to the possible conclusion that the man has a propensity for crime rather than simply having the opportunity of considering it in connection with their evaluation of his credibility. I will permit you to introduce or to question him about one of these convictions. Now, which one would you prefer to use, the recent one in the narcotics area? Or the larceny after trust?
The Assistant United States Attorney “elect [ed] to use” the narcotics conviction.
The task facing the court below was not an easy one. It was presented with two prior convictions, both of which were low in probative value and high in potential prejudice.5 The fact that the court commendably sought to avoid “weighing down the record with evidence of prior criminal convictions,” did not alter the need for an initial consideration whether either of the convictions involved conduct having a “bearing on veracity.’’6 It is not enough simply to apply a rule of thumb which admits into evidence half or a third of the defendant’s previous convictions. All convictions relate to the defendant’s credibility, in the sense that jurors will give less credence to testimony by a man with a criminal past. But Luck and *1236Gordon teach that the relevant determination for the trial court is the bearing each prior conviction has on veracity weighed “against the degree of prejudice which [its] revelation * * * would cause.” 7 In this case, the trial court released this determination into the hands of the prosecutor, who — as might have been expected — chose the more inflammatory conviction.
It is axiomatic that judges — not prosecutors — must exercise the “considered judgment” needed for a Luck ruling: “Judicial wisdom * * * must be brought to bear upon the situation evolving at trial if the balance is to be appropriately struck.”8 I cannot agree that the relinquishment of discretion under Luck was harmless error. The bearing of appellant’s 1961 narcotics conviction on his in-court veracity is certainly less than self-evident.9 Contrarily, the prejudicial propensity of the conviction needs little elaboration; not only the offense itself, but the much publicized connection between narcotics use10 and petty larceny, could surely have inflamed the jury against one accused of theft. For these reasons, this Court has never approved the general use of narcotics convictions for impeachment purposes under Luck and its progeny.11 The introduction of appellant’s prior conviction at the prosecutor’s choosing thus appears to me to be plain error requiring reversal.12

. 121 U.S.App.D.C. 151. 348 F.2d 763 (1965).

. 128 U.S.App.D.C. 19, 385 F.2d 279 (1967).

. Because it was the prosecutor who in the end made the decision to allow the narcotics violation to be used to impeach McIntosh, it is worth noting that he admitted to the trial court that, “I have no other case [besides Brooke] on that score.”

. The prosecutor, in fact, erroneously believed that the court had ruled against him and stated that, “I will accept the Court’s ruling,” to which the court replied in good humor, “I assume * * * you would accept my ruling. You have no other alternative.”

. Any probative value in the 1955 larceny after trust conviction was greatly reduced by its age (thirteen years at the time of trial) ; its prejudicial potential lay in its similarity to the crime on trial. The problems with the 1961 narcotics violation are explored in the text.

. Evans v. United States, 130 U.S.App.D.C. 114, 117, 397 F.2d 675, 678 (196S) (Burger, J.), quoting Gordon v. United States, 127 U.S.App.D.C. 343, 383 F.2d 936 (1967) (Burger, J.) (emphasis added).

. Gordon v. United States, supra note 6 at 346, 383 F.2d at 939.

. Brooke v. United States, supra note 2, 128 U.S.App.D.C. at 25, 385 F.2d at 285 (emphasis added).

. The cases relied on by the United States, Perry v. United States, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 360, 336 F.2d 748 (1964) and Fletcher v. United States, 81 U.S.App.D.C. 306,158 F.2d 321 (1946), involved the reliability of addicts (see note 10 infra) who were informants in narcotics investigations, not defendants in nonnarcotics cases.

. There was no evidence that McIntosh was or had been an addict nor that the 1961 conviction involved possession for use rather than sale.

. Brooke and Evans are inapposite. In Brooke, as the trial court in the present case noted, the testimony proffered by the defendant (who chose not to testify rather than to risk impeachment on the stand) was repetitive of another witness’ testimony. In Evans, the Luck issue was not properly raised because the defendant had not “met his burden of demonstrating some affirmative reasons why the circumstances of his case were such as to make ' his testimony particularly necessary.” 130 U.S.App.D.C. at 117, 397 F.2d at 678.

. Fed.R.Crim.P. 52(b).