Court Opinion

ID: 9623584
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:36:59.188203+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:31.401617
License: Public Domain

Pope, Judge,
concurring specially.
After carefully reviewing the record in the case at bar, I agree that the judgment should be affirmed. I also agree that under current law a witness in a civil case may be impeached by proof of a conviction for a felony or other crime involving moral turpitude, no matter how much time has elapsed since the conviction. See Woodward v. State, 197 Ga. 60 (8) (28 SE2d 480) (1943). However, I would urge that the rule be changed. As it now stands, the rule is unduly harsh. The sins of youth should not invariably be available as a bludgeon to be wielded by an adversary in a civil suit. Where, as in the instant case, some 33 years have passed between the act of an 18-year-old youth who displayed poor judgment and the testimony of a man free from such convictions for that entire 33-year period, the trial court should be vested with the discretion whether or not to allow impeachment by means of such a conviction. The federal rule, which routinely excludes convictions more than ten years old as a means of impeachment, but which also vests the trial court with authority to allow use of a conviction outside the ten year period where the interests of justice so dictate, is the better rule. Until such a rule is adopted, the effects of the present harsh rule can be ameliorated by permitting the person so impeached to offer an explanation in mitigation of the conviction. See generally Belvin v. Houston Fertilizer &c. Co., 169 Ga. App. 100 (2) (311 SE2d 526) (1983). The trial court followed this procedure in the present case.