Court Opinion

ID: 9517792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:32:49.29099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:15:59.566289
License: Public Domain

GIYAN, Justice,
dissenting
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion in this case. The majority holds that it was reversible error for the trial court to permit evidence of two prior convictions, one in 1974 for the possession of heroin and cocaine and a second in 1980 in which he entered a plea of guilty to conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine.
The majority opinion attempts to distinguish this Court’s opinion in Downer v. State (1982), Ind., 429 N.E.2d 953 and Manuel v. State (1977), 267 Ind. 436, 370 N.E.2d 904. However, the majority omits the fact that in Downer we held that remoteness in time of the prior crimes goes *496only to the weight and not the admissibility of the evidence.
In the case at bar, the similarity of the prior convictions is obvious when one takes into consideration the time served in prison on each of the prior convictions. Very little time in fact elapsed between each of the succeeding convictions when appellant had an opportunity to repeat his activity. We have here a clear demonstration of a defendant who, in spite of intervening incarcerations, returns to his chosen activity of distributing heroin and cocaine when he is free to do so. To hold that the prior convictions were too remote to be used in this case is to close one’s eyes to the obvious factual situation.
I would affirm the trial court.
PIVARNIK, J., concurs.