Court Opinion

ID: 9696871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:00:43.814887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:27.337043
License: Public Domain

DIANE S. SYKES, J.
¶ 84. (dissenting). I agree with the conclusion of the Chief Justice and the court of appeals that there was error here. Prior to his own testimony, the defendant moved to exclude the use of three of his five prior convictions for impeachment purposes because they were too old (more than 20 years) and insufficiently related to dishonesty or false statements. The circuit court summarily denied the motion, invoking only the statutory presumption of admissibility, neglecting to apply the legal standard that governs the discretionary decision whether to exclude prior convictions for impeachment purposes under Wis. Stat. § 906.09(2).
*107¶ 85. As the court of appeals noted, Wis. Stat. § 906.09 "does not end with the 'general rule1" of presumptive admissibility. State v. Gary M.B., 2003 WI App 72, ¶ 26, 261 Wis. 2d 811, 661 N.W.2d 435. Rather, it specifies that any presumptively admissible prior conviction nevertheless "may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice." Wis. Stat. § 906.09(2). As the majority opinion and the Chief Justice's dissent note, this statutory exclusion represents a particularized application of the balancing test in Wis. Stat. § 904.03 and generally requires consideration of the following factors: 1) lapse of time since the conviction; 2) rehabilitation or pardon; 3) the gravity of the crime; and 4) the extent to which the crime involved dishonesty or false statements. Majority op., ¶ 21; Chief Justice Abrahamson's dissent, ¶ 56; State v. Kuntz, 160 Wis. 2d 722, 752, 467 N.W.2d 531 (1991); State v. Kruzycki, 192 Wis. 2d 509, 525, 531 N.W.2d 429 (Ct. App. 1995).
¶ 86. Here, the circuit court did not engage in any balancing of the probative value of the defendant’s three older convictions against the danger of unfair prejudice, and did not address itself to any of the Kuntz factors. There is no record of any exercise of discretion at all, only the summary invocation of the statutory presumption of admissibility.
¶ 87. A sustainable exercise of discretion requires' some record of the application of the correct legal standard to the decision at hand, regardless of whether the reviewing court would have made the same discretionary judgment call. Kuntz, 160 Wis. 2d at 745-46; Kruzycki, 192 Wis. 2d at 525. A misapplication of law or failure to apply the appropriate legal standard is an erroneous exercise of discretion, Kruzycki, 192 Wis. 2d at 525; here, the circuit court misapplied the law by *108relying entirely on the statutory presumption, foregoing any analysis of the legal standard appropriate to the exclusion decision itself.
¶ 88. An incomplete or even incorrect application of the law to a discretionary evidentiary decision can sometimes be upheld by application of the independent review doctrine, see State v. Hunt, 2003 WI 81, ¶¶ 43-45, 263 Wis. 2d 1, 666 N.W.2d 771, but as the court of appeals noted, this record is insufficient to support the exercise. Gary M.B., 261 Wis. 2d 811, ¶ 27. This is not just an omission of certain "magic words" associated with a decision — understandable sometimes given the press of business in circuit court and in any event usually not fatal because "magic words" are not required, as long as the record otherwise supports the decision reached.
¶ 89. I agree with the Chief Justice that a one-sentence reference to the presumption of admissibility is insufficient to support a conclusion that discretion was "implicitly" exercised here. Chief Justice Abrahamson's dissent, ¶ 64. I also agree with her conclusion that the prosecutor's reference to a "consistent series" of convictions cannot substitute for an actual on-the-record exercise of discretion by the circuit court, and the fact that the circuit court used a limiting instruction is not by itself enough to fill the gap left by the absence of any record of discretionary balancing. Chief Justice Abrahamson's dissent, ¶¶ 65-66. A reviewing court cannot undertake the missing discretionary balancing on behalf of the circuit court; we do not know what the circuit court might have decided had it undertaken to apply the appropriate legal standard to this important evidentiary decision.
¶ 90. Ultimately, I also agree with the Chief Justice's conclusion that the error at issue here was not *109harmless. I write separately to emphasize that the presumption underlying Wisconsin's "counting rule" regarding prior convictions for impeachment purposes does not necessarily make every mistake of this sort harmful.
¶ 91. It is well-settled, as the majority and the Chief Justice note, that Wisconsin law presumes that persons who have been convicted of a crime are less credible than those who have not, and the longer the criminal record, the less credible the witness is presumed to be. Majority op., ¶¶ 21-23; Chief Justice Abrahamson's dissent, ¶¶ 76-77; State v. Smith, 203 Wis. 2d 288, 295, 297-98, 553 N.W.2d 824 (Ct. App. 1996); Kruzycki, 192 Wis. 2d at 524-25. That every additional conviction potentially "counts" on the credibility scale, however, does not mean that a circuit court error on the number of convictions admitted will usually or even often be harmful. The assessment of harmless error depends entirely upon an individualized application of harmless error analysis to the circumstances of the case.
¶ 92. Last term we synthesized the harmless error rule as follows:
To assess whether an error is harmless, we focus on the effect of the error on the jury's verdict. [State v.] Harvey, 2002 WI 93, 254 Wis. 2d 442, ¶ 44, 647 N.W.2d 189; see also State v. Carlson, 2003 WI 40, ¶ 87, 261 Wis. 2d 97, 661 N.W.2d 51 (Sykes, J., dissenting). This test is " 'whether it appears " 'beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.'"'" Harvey, 2002 WI 93, 254 Wis. 2d 442, ¶ 44 (quoting Neder [v. United States], 527 U.S. at 15-16, quoting in turn Chapman [v. California], 386 U.S. at 24). We have held that "in order to conclude that an error 'did not contribute to the verdict' within the meaning of Chapman, a court must be able to conclude *110'beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error.1" Id., ¶ 48 n.14 (quoting Neder, 527 U.S. at 18). In other words, if it is "clear beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have convicted absent the error," then the error did not "contribute to the verdict." Neder, 527 U.S. at 15, 18 (citation omitted.)
State v. Weed, 2003 WI 85, ¶ 29, 263 Wis. 2d 434, 666 N.W.2d 485.
¶ 93. Harmless error analysis begins with an evaluation of the nature of the error in question and the harm it is alleged to have caused, in order to determine whether it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict obtained. Id., ¶ 30. The test for harmless error is not the same as the test for sufficiency of the evidence. Id., ¶ 28. Neither does it necessarily turn on whether the specific error in question was by itself "outcome determinative," although an "outcome determinative" error would certainly qualify as harmful. Rather, the harmless error test evaluates the nature of the error and the manner and extent to which it can reasonably be said to have contributed to the verdict obtained. "[T]he focus is on the effect of the evidentiary or legal mistake on the case as a whole, presupposing a rational jury." State v. Carlson, 2003 WI 40, ¶ 87, 261 Wis. 2d 97, 661 N.W.2d 51 (Sykes, J., dissenting). In contrast to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, where the burden of showing prejudice is on the defendant, the burden of demonstrating an error's harmlessness is on the state as the beneficiary of the error. State v. Harvey, 2002 WI 93, ¶ 41, 254 Wis. 2d 442, 647 N.W.2d 189.
¶ 94. The error in this case is the circuit court's decision to admit the defendant's three criminal convictions from the 1970s for credibility impeachment pur*111poses, resulting in the placement before the jury of evidence of a criminal conviction record totaling five rather than two. Under the circumstances of this case, this was not an evidentiary decision of only minor significance.
¶ 95. That it was the defendant's criminal record rather than that of another witness is a substantial consideration. While all trials are credibility contests, this one was exclusively so. It was a delayed-report sexual molestation case with no physical or medical evidence and no other evidentiary corroboration of the victim's version of events. The defendant, the victim's stepfather, testified and denied the allegations. The verdict therefore depended completely upon the jury's evaluation of the credibility of the victim as against the credibility of the defendant. The victim's credibility was impeached with a number of prior inconsistent statements and by statements and letters to the defendant after moving to her grandmother's home after the death of her mother, in which she stated that she missed the defendant and wanted to live with him.
¶ 96. In closing argument, the prosecutor twice invited the jury to evaluate the defendant's credibility in light of his criminal record, the first reference highlighting the actual number of prior convictions ("you can take into consideration the fact that he has had five prior convictions"). Apart from the fact that the defendant's interest in the outcome of the case provided a built-in incentive to deny the allegations, the evidence of his five prior convictions was the only record evidence bearing upon his credibility. No prior inconsistent statements tending to undermine his credibility were admitted into evidence, nor was there any evidence of behaviors on his part tending to show a consciousness of guilt. The jury, of course, had no *112information about the nature, seriousness, or age of the prior convictions; the only evidentiary basis upon which to evaluate the effect of the priors on the defendant's credibility was the number. Under these circumstances, the number of the defendant's prior convictions for credibility impeachment purposes took on heightened significance.
¶ 97. As the Chief Justice has noted, the jury had trouble with this case, and was very nearly hung. Chief Justice Abrahamson's dissent, ¶ 80. The case required an extremely difficult judgment about credibility. It may be true in many cases that once a jury knows that a witness has a criminal record, an erroneous overstatement of the number of prior convictions will present little difficulty for the reviewing court, such that it may conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have convicted absent the error — that is, that the error did not contribute to the verdict obtained. For the foregoing reasons, however, I cannot reach that beyond-a-reasonable-doubt conclusion here, and therefore respectfully dissent.
¶ 98. I am authorized to state that Justice ANN WALSH BRADLEY joins this dissent.