Court Opinion

ID: 9466236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:09:20.492771+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:37.220167
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Circuit Judge,
concurring with en banc opinion:
I am persuaded that a defendant should be entitled to appellate review of the denial of a Rule 609 motion without testifying. However, my Brother Kennedy raises questions which cause me to add my view of an obviously troublesome area.
It is clear to me that the district judge may, within his wide discretion, properly defer ruling on a pretrial Rule 609 motion when, in spite of an offer of proof as to what the defendant would testify, he concludes that ruling is inappropriate at that juncture. But that question is not before us; here the pretrial motion was denied. The issue is: once a district judge has ruled and the defendant has chosen not to testify, is the question reviewable on appeal? Because I conclude that the defendant has not waived his right to challenge the ruling, the issue is resolved to my satisfaction by requiring the complaining party to establish a basis for appellate review — i. e., did the ruling of the district judge actually affect the defendant’s decision whether to testify and the determination of guilt by the jury.
I join with the majority on my assumption that, in addition to demonstrating that the district judge abused his discretion in ruling as he did, the defendant will also have the burden to prove prejudice. He would thus need to show not only that he would have testified but for the adverse Rule 609 decision and what his testimony would have been, but must also meet the burden of demonstrating that his testimony would more probably than not have altered the jury verdict. See United States v. Valle-Valdez, 554 F.2d 911, 916 (9th Cir. 1977). This would limit the problem of the defendant’s winning the battle although there is only speculation as to what would have occurred had he testified. True, there would be some measure of guesswork on our part and, I would assume, doubts would be resolved in favor of the defendant. But that, I believe, would occur only in the very close case. This approach would provide a workable solution in the vast number of cases where this issue is raised and would afford a fair resolution of two valid positions.