Court Opinion

ID: 9776764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:44:23.738567+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:20.762219
License: Public Domain

Melvin Mayfield, Chief Judge, concurring. This case and the case of Williams v. State, 6 Ark. App. 410,644 S. W.2d 608, also decided today, are just two examples of the difficulty that courts are having with a rule of evidence in effect in the federal courts and in many of the state courts in this nation. In these cases the defendants asked the trial court to rule on whether the state could ask them about prior convictions in the event they testified in their defense. In both cases the court ruled that the prior convictions would be admissible. Neither defendant testified and both contend on appeal that the ruling of the trial court was wrong. I concur in the result reached by the majority in these cases because I would hold that the trial court had no duty to make the advance ruling and that a defendant who does not take the stand waives his objections to the ruling. In United States v. Johnston, 543 F.2d 55 (8th Cir. 1976), the court said: “Moreover, until Johnston took the stand, which he chose not to do, the court had no duty to rule on his pretrial motion regarding the admissibility of evidence of his prior convictions for purposes of impeachment.” There are other federal circuit courts which have held that a defendant’s failure to take the stand does not constitute a waiver of his objection to the trial court’s ruling. See 3 J. Weinstein & Berger, Weinstein’s Evidence § 609[05] (1981). In that regard, the case of United States v. Cook, 608 F.2d 1175 (9th Cir. 1979), is of interest. In the majority opinion, six judges held, on this point, that the defendant’s failure to take the stand did not waive his right to challenge, on appeal, the trial court’s ruling that he could be impeached by prior convictions if he testified. The opinion pointed out that in some cases in the past the court had held to the contrary, but said “we believe it is unrealistic to continue to refuse to review these rulings unless the defendant takes the stand.” Five judges disagreed. In one opinion, four of those judges said: This court should begin to question whether its attempts to devise new and further refinements for the criminal procedure system serve in any real sense to secure a fair and just trial. In a separate opinion, another judge said: What I believe the majority is doing is creating another device which more often will lead to reversal of otherwise entirely proper convictions than to prevention of injustice. Put differently, what the majority requires may well satisfy our intellectual aspirations for justice but is unlikely otherwise to serve the ends of justice. The Cook case makes it clear that there is no constitutional question involved on the single point of whether the trial court’s advance ruling is reviewable on appeal when the defendant does not testify. In New Jersey v. Portash, 440 U.S. 450 (1979), the constitutional implications of the pretrial ruling were considered only because the state system had done so and the right of appellate review when the defendant had not testified was not an issue. Even so, one Justice wrote: [A] requirement that such a claim be adjudicated on appeal only when presented by a defendant who has taken the stand prevents a defendant from manufacturing constitutional challenges when he has no intention of taking the stand and téstifying in his own behalf. More fundamentally, such disembodied deci-sionmaking removes disputes from the factual and often legal context that sharpens issues, highlights problem areas of special concern, and, above all, gives a reviewing court some notion of the practical reach of its pronouncements. Arguments for and against allowing review when the defendant obtains a ruling but does not take the stand are well presented in United States v. Cook, supra, and we need not reiterate here. The defendants in the instant case and in Williams v. State, handed down today, both sought to limit the evidence of their prior convictions to the fact of conviction and thus to exclude the details of the conviction. Although I do not agree that this should be the rule in all cases, I do think it would be the proper rule in some cases. In my view this should be a part of the balancing test provided in Rule 609 (a). In some cases the fact of the prior conviction would be admissible but the details of the conviction would not be because the prejudicial effect would then outweigh the probative value. I would hold, however, that the defendant must actually take the stand and testify before the court can properly perform the necessary balancing test contemplated in Rule .609 (a). As the four-judge dissent in the Cook case says, that is the time when the probative value of the conviction can be balanced against its prejudicial effect with the most care and precision. Without that actual testimony and the actual offer of the prior convictions (whether this is done in the courtroom or in chambers), the trial court, and the appellate court on review, can only speculate on the evidence and rule in the dark. As to the balancing test, I would like to see a commonsense, practical approach. The factors set out in our case of Washington v. State, 6 Ark. App. 85, 638 S.W.2d 690 (1982), are proper and worthwhile but are not all-inclusive. I would hope that no list, no ritual, no fetish, would replace the trial judge’s discretion and sense of what is right. And I would hope that the appellate courts would remember that the trial judge rules in the arena and not in the library.