Court Opinion

ID: 9612856
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:11:49.280292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:52:00.837870
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result to affirm the conviction, and specially concur to discuss the “credibility only” limiting instruction to which objection was taken by the litigant presenting the witness. I would find guidance in a further sentence in the same section of 1 Louisell and Mueller, Federal Evidence § 45 at 348 quoted by the majority opinion, which in amplification announces:
« * * * £rjaj jU(jge should, however, solicit and respect the views of trial counsel on the desirability of giving instructions, so as to protect the role of counsel in assessing the risk of jury misuse of the evidence, which role is implicitly assigned to counsel by Rule 105.”
My discussion of the converse effects of limiting instructions in Clarke v. Vandermeer, Wyo., 740 P.2d 921, 929 (1987), Urbigkit, J., dissenting, will not be reiterated here. See also Shields v. Carnahan, Wyo., 744 P.2d 1115 (1987). May it suffice to recall that we deal with the recollective support and the persuasive augmentation of repetition, and particularly so when spoken “by the judge.” “What I hear once, I suspect; what I hear twice, I think; what I then hear again, I come to know, even if determining that the world is flat.”
Within the confines of an organized system and justified control of the court process, the trial court should permit counsel to analyze, interpret, and develop a trial plan and desired evidence. With something more than one of every 38 adults of our *1284society having achieved the characterization of being a convict, avoidance of this number of persons as witnesses is neither reasonable nor possible. In some cases, it may be that these persons’ inability to lie as well as benighted brothers, serves as the cause why they are, and the others are not. It is suggested that our system, without age or characterization differential, should look at the witness in terms of individual believability and his or her testimony in terms of intrinsic reasonableness. Some courts have moved away from the automatic exposure of felony conviction status as a demeaning characterization in witness cross-examination. I do not expect this court to go that far this fast, but would leave in conception for the perceptive attorney to assess whether the “favorable” limiting instruction may actually be deadly.
In this case, the testimony of the witness was so inherently unbelievable that neither a cape nor a halo could have authenticated validation. Consequently, in this case, I would find mistake in giving an unwanted limiting instruction of this kind, but not as here to constitute reversible error.
My precept was recognized by Justice Stevens dissenting in Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U.S. 333, 340, 98 S.Ct. 1091, 1095, 55 L.Ed.2d 319 (1978), in discussion of the differentiated subject of a limiting instruction recognizing the witness’ right to exercise privilege against self-incrimination:
“It may be wise for a trial judge not to give such a cautionary instruction over a defendant’s objection. And each State is, of course, free to forbid its trial judges from doing so as a matter of state law.”
As a case specifically taking that position, see Russell v. State, 240 Ark. 97, 398 S.W. 2d 213 (1966).
Reason dictates that attorneys and not the court should normally provide the analysis whether or not a “helpful” witness-qualification limiting instruction should be given.