Court Opinion

ID: 9768504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:06:35.476619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:41.496522
License: Public Domain

SUPPLEMENTAL OPINION ON DENIAL OF REHEARING APRIL 18, 1994 Steele Hays, Justice. Appellant’s petition for rehearing insists that our opinion of March 21, 1994, affirming the judgment entered on his conviction of four counts of rape failed to address his contention that A.R.E. Rule 405 is governed by Rule 403 and, hence, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.  We discussed the point at some length in part I, though our opinion may not have been explicit. Settled law dating well back in the common law (and now incorporated in A.R.E. Rules 404 and 405) provides that when an accused offers character evidence in his own behalf, the character witness is subject to cross-examination as to his or her knowledge of relevant specific instances of conduct by the accused. That is precisely what occurred in this trial, as our opinion recounts, and when that occurs, cross-examination as to specific instances of conduct is allowed irrespective of prejudice. Clark v. State, 292 Ark. 69, 727 S.W.2d 853 (1986); Lowe v. State, 264 Ark. 205, 570 S.W.2d 253 (1978); Weaver v. State, 83 Ark. 119, 102 S.W. 713 (1907). In Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469 (1948), the Supreme Court addressed the right of the prosecution to cross-examine a defendant’s character witness: . . .the price a defendant must pay for attempting to prove his good name is to throw open the entire subject which the law has kept closed for his benefit and to make himself vulnerable where the law otherwise shields him.  In United States v. Bright, 588 F.2d 504 (1979), cert denied, 440 U.S. 972 (1979), the Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, specifically rejected the argument that Rule 403 is applicable to the cross-examination of character witnesses. And see 1A Wigmore, Evidence § 58 (Tillers rev. 1983). Rehearing denied. Corbin, J., not participating.