Court Opinion

ID: 9639826
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:49:28.88214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.201877
License: Public Domain

Neil, Chief Justice
(concurring*).
I have heretofore indicated my concurrence in the majority opinion as prepared for the Court by Mr. Justice Prewitt. However, I feel that the “Zanone case” should be clarified on the point made in the instant case, and should not be otherwise disturbed.
Mr. Justice Pbewitt has quoted at length from the opinion in Zanone v. State, which took a rather wide range in dealing generally with questions deemed proper as well as improper on cross-examination. Much of the opinion by Special Justice Allen in the Zanone case is irrelevant to the problem posed in the case at bar.
I have carefully re-read and considered Brooks v. State, 187 Tenn. 67, 213 S. W. (2d) 7 (opinion by Mr. Justice Burnett), wherein the Court made it plain to one and all that an accused may not be asked about prior indictments and accusations involving other crimes. There is this further distinction, or clarification, which should be made, that is the right of the State to prove other crimes by way of cross-examination of the defendant. As a general rule the State may not prove the commission of other separate and distinct offenses.
Now the State should not be allowed to inquire of the -accused of other crimes for which the defendant is to be tried. If ■ he is guilty of such a crime, involving moral turpitude, the record of conviction is the best evidence. *616The inquiry cannot be made competent by asking the defendant, “Are you not guilty of this crime?” He is not only presumed to be innocent, but the accused is being required to give evidence against himself. In other words, be is being arraigned on an indictment and required to plead to it before being brought to trial for the offense.
I feel that it is the duty of the trial judge to limit the cross-examination with reference to “other crimes” to those where the accused has been convicted of acts involving moral turpitude. It is a useless consumption of time to permit the cross-examination of the defendant, or ■any witness, regarding bis guilt of trivial offenses:
Now as I understand from reading the opinion in the Brooks case, Zanone v. State is not overruled in its entirety. But cross-examination must be confined to crimes (1) where a defendant, or the witness, has been convicted, and which admittedly involves moral turpitude; and (2) his character wherein he has committed offenses contrary to accepted standards of decency and morality, but which may not necessarily be subject to criminal prosecution. The State, of course, is bound by his answer in the sense that it cannot prove by way of rebuttal that he was guilty of the specific wrongs and offenses about which he had been asked. But the State may prove his general bad character by witnesses who are qualified to testify about it.
There are cases in which the State is privileged to prove separate and distinct crimes, as in Wrather v. State, 179 Tenn. 666, on page 675, 169 S. W. (2d) 854, on page 857, (note opinion of Chambliss, Justice.). The exception to the general rule excluding proof of independent crimes is the following statement in the opinion: “Among the exceptions recognized to this general rule are when the evidence is introduced to prove identity, *617knowledge as reflecting an intent, plan or system, a course of conduct, or, of course, when part of the res gestae See also authorities cited in the opinion, 179 Tenn. on page 678, 169 S. W. (2d) on page 858, as follows:
“In the annotation in 3 A. L. R. at page 784, other cases are cited, among them Baxter v. State, 91 Ohio St. 167, 110 N. E. 456, 458, holding that ‘vague and uncertain evidence ’ of the commission of a previous offense ‘ should never he admitted under any pretense whatever.’ ”
Prom the foregoing it shows beyond cavil the soundness of the rule excluding any inquiry on cross-examination regarding the commission of other similar crimes. The foregoing is my view of the question involved as well as my reason for concurring in the opinion of Mr. Justice PREWITT.