Court Opinion

ID: 9845350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:19:41.297813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:02.067391
License: Public Domain

Walter T. Cox, III, Acting Associate Justice
(dissenting) :
I agree that simple possession of marijuana is not an act of baseness, vileness or depravity in the social duties which a man owes to his fellow man or to society in general and therefore not a crime of moral turpitude and I further agree that evidence of such conviction would be inadmissible as such; but, being of the view that no probable prejudice resulted to the defendant from the admission of the witness’s testimony, I respectfully dissent.
The entire colloquy between the Assistant Solicitor and the alibi witness concerning this question was as follows:
Assistant Solicitor: Are you the same Ray Smith that plead guilty to possession of marijuana in October, 1977.
*228Witness: Yes.
Defense Counsel: Your Honor, I object to that as irrelevant.
The Court: Objection is overruled.
The witness was one of three witnesses offered by defendant to prove that the defendant had an alibi, that he was in Miami, Florida at the time the offense occurred.
The record is clear that this particular witness was overwhelmingly impeached by the cross-examination of the Assistant Solicitor on other grounds.
Two other witnesses were offered to support the alibi. A close look at their testimony indicates a substantial lack of credibility.
The state’s case, on the other hand, consisted of the testimony of an undercover deputy sheriff wired for sound; who testified he made the purchase of marijuana from the defendant. His testimony was corroborated by another deputy sheriff who received the transmissions from the electronic surveillance equipment and by the testimony of an informer who accompanied the deputy sheriff at the time of the purchase.
Reviewing the testimony as a whole there is nothing in the record to suggest any prejudice to* the defendant as a result of these seventeen words of testimony.
Admission of testimony is largely within the discretion of the trial judge and erroneous exercise of it must be accompanied by probable prejudice to the other party in order to entitle him to a new trial for the admission of the questioned evidence. State v. Collins, 235 S. C. 65, 110 S. E. (2d) 270, 277 (1979). In view of all other properly admitted evidence, this evidence of the prior conviction is not so prejudicial as to require a new trial and its admission cannot be deemed to have denied appellant a fair trial. See *229State v. Spinks, 260 S. C. 404, 196 S. E. (2d) 313 (1973); State v. Knight, 258 S. C. 452, 189 S. E. (2d) 1 (1972).
I would distinguish Hatchett v. State, 552 S. W. (2d) 414 (Tenn. 1977) on the ground that the introduction of the prior conviction for marijuana in that case was the prior conviction of the defendant and under the facts of that case there was a substantial danger of prejudice which I do not find here.
I would further use this case to abandon the moral turpitude rule and adopt a rule which has a more objective basis. Section 16-1-10 of the South Carolina Code of Laws (1976) classifies certain crimes as felonies. I would hold that only felony convictions, not too remote in time, can be used to impeach a witness. This is consistent with the leading authorities on evidence as is reflected in the recent adoption of Rule 609(a.), Federal Rules of Evidence which provides:
For the purpose of attacking the credibility of a witness, evidence that he has been convicted of a crime shall be admitted if elicited from him or established by public record during cross-examination but only if the crime (1) was punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year under the law under which he was convicted, and the court determines that the probative value of admitting this evidence outweighs its prejudicial effect to the defendant, or (2) involved dishonesty or false statement, regardless of the punishment.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.