Court Opinion

ID: 9709872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:56:36.814232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:52.261505
License: Public Domain

Lynch, J.
(dissenting, with whom Nolan, J., joins). I respectfully dissent. I agree that Flannery’s testimony regarding statements by Nancy Reed should not have been admitted. Although that testimony should have been excluded, I believe that no prejudice resulted. This is so because the defendant testified and denied that he ever made either statement. If the jury were willing to believe that the defendant himself confessed to Flannery, then that was enough evidence. If they chose to disbelieve Flannery’s testimony on that point, then surely they would have rejected Flannery’s testimony regarding the statements of Nancy Reed. As Judge Learned Hand put it, “[i]f, from all that the jury see of the witness, they conclude that what he says now is not the truth, but what he said before, they are none the less deciding from what they see and hear of that person and in court.” DiCarlo v. United States, 6 F.2d 364, 368 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 268 U.S. 706 (1925). As such, the evidence of Nancy Reed’s statements could only be cumulative and not prejudicial. See Commonwealth v. Lowe, 391 Mass. 97, 106, cert. denied, 105 S.Ct. 143 (1984); Commonwealth v. Bongarzone, 390 Mass. 326, 342 (1983).
My opinion in this regard is fortified by the fact that the judge limited the use of this testimony to corroboration of the defendant’s own admissions to Flannery. Thus the statements properly could not have been considered as proof of the matter asserted. In this limited form the evidence pales into insignificance in the face of Flannery’s statement that the defendant admitted the crime and the defendant’s testimony that he did not.
*446In regard to the admission of the evidence of the defendant’s prior convictions, I wish to emphasize that I do not depart from the view I expressed in my concurrence in Commonwealth v. Elliot, 393 Mass. 824, 834 (1985): “Evidence of a prior conviction, especially of a violent crime or one involving dishonesty, is probative as to the defendant’s credibility as a witness. See Advisory Committee Note to First Draft of Proposed Fed. R. Evid. 609(a), reprinted in 46 F.R.D. 161, 297 (1969) (‘A demonstrated instance of willingness to engage in conduct in disregard of accepted patterns is translatable into willingness to give false testimony’). A reasonable basis exists, therefore, for the legislative determination that evidence that the defendant has been found guilty of a failure to conform his conduct to the legal norms of society should be brought to the jury’s attention, as an aid in evaluating the defendant’s sincerity and reliability as a witness. The judge’s role should generally be limited to preventing misuse of the evidence, through appropriate limiting instructions and careful monitoring of the prosecutor’s use of the evidence at trial. Only in extreme circumstances, not shown to be present here, would I conclude that the danger of unfair prejudice required the exclusion of such evidence” (emphasis in original). Id. at 835 (Lynch, J., concurring).