Court Opinion

ID: 9768115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:42:58.537225+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:04:48.677504
License: Public Domain

Darrell Hickman, Justice, dissenting. Berl Harvey of Fayetteville was convicted of possession of stolen property and received a sentence of eleven years in the penitentiary. During the trial a prominent banker from nearby Siloam Springs, Arkansas was called as a character witness for Harvey. The banker testified that he had known Harvey for twenty-five years, known of him for thirty-nine years, and that his reputation for truth and veracity was good. The trial court excluded this testimony because the banker did not know the reputation of Harvey in the “community” of Fayetteville. Counsel for Harvey objected to the ruling of the court with the argument that interpreting “community” as the geographical limits of Fayetteville was too strict; that an individual who is associated with the defendant should be allowed to testify as to a person’s reputation — although they do not know that reputation in the neighborhood or place where the defendant lives. The lower court and the majority of this court have applied a rule of evidence, which has been used by the courts in Arkansas since the case of Kee vs. State, 28 Ark. 155 (1873). That rule is that a witness can testify about the good reputation of a defendant, for telling the truth, in the neighborhood or community where the defendant resides. This court has followed that rule consistently, without deviation or expansion since the Kee case. In other words, a person can have only one reputation and that reputation must be in the neighborhood or community where the person lives. It cannot be a reputation that has been established among associates, friends or fellow workers at a distant place. This rule has been criticized in legal circles because the reasons for the rule no longer exist. That is, “neighborhood” or “community” is too restrictive in terms of life today. People live in one place and work in another. In Wigmore On Evidence, Vol. V, § 1616, 591, 592, the author explains why such a strict rule should not be followed today. There may be distinct circles of persons, each circle having no relation to the other, and yet each having a reputation based on constant and intimate personal observation of the man. There is every reason why the law should recognize this. Time has produced new conditions for reputations. The traditional requirement about “neighborhood” reputation was appropriate to the conditions of the time; but it should not be taken as imposing arbitrary limitations not appropriate in other times. . . . What the law, then as now, desired was a trustworthy reputation; if that is to be found among a circle of persons other than the circle of dwellers about a sleeping-place, it should be received. The modern judicial rulings on this class of questions show frequently a perverse defiance of common sense. “The rules of evidence”, said Lord Ellenborough, “must expand according to the exigencies of society”. To the same effect, see Jones On Evidence, Vol. I, § 4:46. July 1, 1976, the Arkansas Uniform Rules of Evidence became effective, and Rule 803 (21) permits evidence of reputation of an individual “among his associates”. [emphasis added] Berl Harvey was tried before the effective date of these rules and it is perhaps ironic that the old rule, followed by this court for many years, may be abandoned hereafter. The lower court and the majority of this court have properly applied the rule as it has existed in the past. But the justification for such a narrow rule has long ceased to exist. The only real argument in defense of that rule, in this day and time, is that it has simply been the rule. The character witness for the appellant should have been permitted to testify because he was in a position to know Berl Harvey’s reputation, and to deny that testimony in a critical case, where the credibility of the appellant is involved, is to deny a fair trial. Therefore, I would reverse this case and remand it for a new trial. Byrd, J., joins in this dissent.