Court Opinion

ID: 9752575
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:15:44.793544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:45:53.981627
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Judge,
concurring:
I join Judge Beck’s well reasoned opinion. As narrowly constructed by our Supreme Court, the 10-year rule announced in Commonwealth v. Randall, 515 Pa. 410, 528 *414A.2d 1326 (1987), appears to apply only with respect to release from confinement on the prior crimen falsi offense, and not to release from confinement on subsequent noncrimen falsi offenses. Hence, the fine distinction drawn in this case is appropriate and prudent.
More generally speaking, however, I understand the 10 year rule announced in Randall to be an expression of a conclusion that the passage of 10 years without repetition of criminally deceptive conduct involves sufficient attenuation of the relevance of evidence of a prior conviction for a crimen falsi offense to the issue of credibility to warrant a balancing test for admissibility, rather than a per se rule of admissibility. Though Randall does not discuss the impact which subsequent incarceration for a non-crimen falsi offense would have on the balance between relevance and potential prejudice, I submit that evidence of a prior crimen falsi conviction would remain highly relevant despite its age, if the defendant had been incarcerated and thus rendered incapable of repeating the criminally deceptive act during the time between the prior offense and the current trial.
I believe it is only the passage of a 10 year period of honest law abiding conduct at liberty which may reasonably be deemed to demonstrate reformation, and thereby dissipate the probative weight of evidence of prior criminally deceptive acts on the issue of credibility. A convict who had no opportunity to demonstrate reformation should not by mere passage of time be presumed to have reformed. Professor Alschuler has cogently observed in a slightly different context:
To probe a person’s psyche and predict his future behavior is always an awesome task, and the optimistic belief that one can discern a person’s general propensity for law observance from his regimented conduct in a prison now seems remarkably naive.
Alschuler, Sentencing Reform and Prosecutorial Power, 126 U.Pa.L.Rev. 550, 552, (1978). Likewise it would seem to me remarkably naive to consider appellant’s non-repetition *415of a criminally deceptive conduct during confinement for any reason, evidence of reformation thereby dissipating the unquestionable relevance of appellant’s prior criminally deceptive conduct to the issue of his credibility.
Consequently, even if I were to assume, arguendo, that the distinction drawn by Judge Beck regarding the effect of appellant’s recommittal on the prior crimen falsi conviction (for non-crimen falsi parole violations) on the 10 year rule was neither anticipated nor intended by our Supreme Court in its Randall opinion, I would nonetheless find the evidence properly admissible applying the residual Roots/Big-hum balancing test. Though relatively dated, the evidence of appellant’s prior crimen falsi conviction remained highly probative on the issue of his credibility in this case. See Commonwealth v. Osborn, 364 Pa.Super. 505, 508-16, 528 A.2d 623, 625-28.(1987) (16 year old perjury conviction was properly admissible under Roots/Bighum test); Commonwealth v. Stinnett, 356 Pa.Super. 83, 514 A.2d 154 (1986) (applying the Roots/Bighum test); Commonwealth v. Duffy, 355 Pa.Super. 145, 512 A.2d 1253 (1986) (same); Commonwealth v. Bailey, 354 Pa.Super. 51, 511 A.2d 180 (1986) (same).