Court Opinion

ID: 9459027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:08:18.082782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:59.135823
License: Public Domain

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent. As the majority opinion reveals, the question of whether evidence of a prior conviction from which an appeal is currently pending may be adduced to impeach a criminal defendant who takes the stand in a subsequent prosecution has been answered in different ways in different jurisdictions. See generally Annot., 16 A.L.R.3d 726. In fact, there is a major conflict among the Circuits on this issue that the Supreme Court has apparently not yet resolved. Id. I do not find that the issue has squarely arisen before in the Fifth Circuit, but my brothers today adopt the “majority rule” and allow the use of prior convictions, from which appeals are pending, for impeachment purposes only. A detailed review of the cases compiled in the cited annotations would serve little purpose here. Suffice it to say that I believe the “minority rule” is the better reasoned one. See, e. g., United States v. Semonsohn, 2 Cir. 1970, 421 F.2d 1206; Campbell v. United States, D.C.Cir.1949, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 133, 176 F.2d 45, 47 (1949); Fenwick v. United States, D.C.Cir.1958, 102 U.S.App.D.C. 212, 252 F.2d 124. I would allow no use, even for impeachment, of any prior conviction unless and until it becomes final. A conviction that is on appeal is not, to my mind, “final.” Use of any prior conviction “for impeachment only” is fraught with danger — the most obvious hazard being that jurors may not be able to perform the mental gymnastics needed if they are to consider the prior conviction only for impeaching the defendant’s testimony and not for proof that his character is criminal. The danger that the impeaching evidence may itself soon become a nullity, see “Prior Convictions as Impeaching Evidence,” 28 Wash. & Lee L.Rev. 490, 496 (1971), is sufficient justification for prohibiting use of that evidence.