Court Opinion

ID: 9577893
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:39:12.066268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:25.997253
License: Public Domain

Bobbitt, J.,
concurring in result: There are two grounds on which I think a new trial should be awarded, viz.:
1. Defendant made no judicial admission or stipulation. Only his testimony was before the court and jury. This was evidence, nothing more. The trial judge treated this testimony as a judicial admission, thereby removing from the jury’s consideration and determination one of the essential elements of the offense. It seems unnecessary to determine the purport of defendant’s testimony.
2. Defendant offered no character evidence. He testified, on cross-examination, that some four years back he had pleaded guilty to the charge of “drunken driving” and had been “to Mayor’s Court for public drunkenness.” The evidence was competent, by way of impeachment, as bearing on the credibility of defendant’s testimony. This is an excerpt from the charge: “The State contends further, one contention the State makes that I call your attention to, that is, that the defendant by his own testimony is the kind of a man who would do this kind of a thing, for that about three or four years ago he was convicted of the same thing, and that therefore he is the kind of man who would commit the offense with which he is charged, and that according to his own testimony he has been convicted three or four times of being under the influence of intoxicants and is the kind of man who gets under the influence of intoxicants and is the kind of man who would drive a car under such condition because he has heretofore been convicted of the same thing.” Although phrased as a contention, I think this instruction plainly indicated to the jury that evidence as to the defendant’s prior offenses was substantive evidence bearing on his guilt or innocence in the case being tried.