Court Opinion

ID: 9478305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:45:32.744562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:21.371715
License: Public Domain

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join the majority opinion and write separately only to express my view of the extremely troubling “harping” issue. The rule of Campbell v. Greer, 831 F.2d 700 (7th Cir.1987), is stringent enough without permitting its own announced limitations to be flagrantly violated. Although, as the majority notes, Campbell sternly forbids tactics which “shift the focus of attention from the events at issue in the present case to the witness’s conviction[s] in a previous case,” Campbell, 831 F.2d at 707, footnote 5 of the majority opinion describes defense tactics which seem to relentlessly pursue precisely such a shift.
Of course, the requirement that objections be raised first in the trial court is basic to the process of appellate review. But it is certainly arguable that plaintiff’s counsel raised this issue as promptly as possible (in his reply brief) after Campbell and its “harping” caveat came down. Thus this case might present a recognized exception to the waiver rule of Walsh v. Mellas, 837 F.2d 789 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 2832, 100 L.Ed.2d 933 (1988). Under the Walsh exceptions there may be in the case before us “exceptional circumstances where justice demands more flexibility.” Walsh, 837 F.2d at 800; see also Johnson v. Artim Transp. System, Inc., 826 F.2d 538, 548 (7th Cir.1987), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 1998, 100 L.Ed.2d 229 (1988).1
However, in this case the trial record reveals that despite egregious “harping” during the trial, counsel never raised a single objection on this issue. Thus, although the point may be a far fetch, I think *267trial counsel might have been alerted to object to this development as such during the trial, even though evidence of the prior convictions had been admitted over his objection. Even without Judge Posner’s opinion in Campbell, trial counsel might have perceived that flagrant and repetitive reliance on the prior convictions was a matter going beyond their essential admissibility. For this reason, I think the result here may not be as unjust as it would otherwise appear. Nevertheless, it remains a close call, given that the standard under which the trial attorney could have objected was not announced until after trial. Thus our result depends upon the egregious character of the error at trial, its clearly objectionable nature even under the rule at the time of the trial and the total absence of any objection on point by the trial attorney. Without these features, a change in the law after trial would constitute an “exceptional circumstance” demanding flexibility in the interests of justice. To hold otherwise would be to require trial attorneys to be seers as well as advocates, an unfortunate result.

. The “flexibility” exception traces its genealogy back through a long line of Seventh Circuit cases, Walsh, 837 F.2d at 800 (quoting Johnson, 826 F.2d at 548 (quoting Zbaraz v. Hartigan, 763 F.2d 1532, 1544 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 479, 98 L.Ed.2d 478 (1987) (quoting Stern v. United States Gypsum Co., 547 F.2d 1329, 1333-34 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 975, 98 S.Ct. 533, 54 L.Ed.2d 467 (1977) (quoting Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. v. Quinn, 419 F.2d 1014, 1019 (7th Cir.1969) (quoting United States v. Tyrrell, 329 F.2d 341, 345 (7th Cir.1964) (quoting Ketler v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, 196 F.2d 822, 827 (7th Cir.1952) (quoting Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U.S. 552, 557, 61 S.Ct. 719, 721, 85 L.Ed. 1037 (1941)))))))), to a Supreme Court case in which Justice Black wrote:
Rules of practice and procedure are devised to promote the ends of justice, not to defeat them. A rigid and undeviating judicially declared practice under which courts of review would invariably and under all circumstances decline to consider all questions which had not previously been specifically urged would be out of harmony with this policy. Orderly rules of procedure do not require sacrifice of the rules of fundamental justice.
312 U.S. at 557, 61 S.Ct. at 721. This is perhaps a timely reminder in times when the pressures of increasing dockets raise the incentives for finding procedural grounds for dismissal of claims.