Court Opinion

ID: 9734345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:32:22.672647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:48.071740
License: Public Domain

WIEAND, Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
With one exception, hereinafter discussed, I agree fully with the majority’s disposition of the issues raised by appellant. I find myself in disagreement solely with the disposition of appellant’s argument that he was prejudiced unnecessarily by the trial court’s ruling that if he elected to testify the Commonwealth would be permitted to attack his credibility by showing various convictions for theft, robbery, burglary and receiving stolen property occurring between 1971 and 1977. The use of prior convictions to attack a defendant’s credibility has received thorough consideration in recent decisions of the Supreme Court. The reason given by the trial court for its ruling in this case, moreover, has been rejected as a proper basis for receiving prior convictions by an opinion of this Court. Because the issue is no longer an open one and because under similar circumstances a trial court has been held to abuse its discretion by permitting evidence of prior convictions, I must respectfully dissent.
*187The majority observes correctly that whether to permit prior convictions to impeach credibility is within the discretion of the trial court. That discretion, however, must be exercised in a meaningful way. Commonwealth v. Williams, 273 Pa.Super. 389, 417 A.2d 704 (1980). Prior convictions may not be received to attack the credibility of a defendant unless the prosecution meets the burden of showing that the need for such evidence overcomes its inherent potential for prejudice. Commonwealth v. Roots, 482 Pa. 33, 41, 393 A.2d 364, 368 (1978). In the Roots decision, trial courts were directed to consider the following: “1) the degree to which the commission of the prior offense reflects upon the veracity of the defendant-witness; 2) the likelihood, in view of the nature and extent of the prior record, that it would have a greater tendency to smear the character of the defendant and suggest a propensity to commit the crime for which he stands charged, rather than provide a legitimate reason for discrediting him as an untruthful person; 3) the age and circumstances of the defendant; 4) the strength of the prosecution’s case and the prosecution’s need to resort to this evidence as compared with the availability to the defense of other witnesses through which its version of the events surrounding the incident can be presented; and 5) the existence of alternative means of attacking the defendant’s credibility.”
In the instant case, the trial court concluded that the prior convictions should be received because the testimony which appellant wished to give went only to the collateral issue of the voluntariness of his confession. The same issue was before the Superior Court in Commonwealth v. Phillips, 272 Pa.Super. 16, 414 A.2d 646 (1979) (WIEAND, J., dissenting). There the appellant also sought to challenge the voluntariness of a confession. This Court reversed a trial court ruling which would have allowed a prior conviction for theft, holding that the ruling prevented appellant from testifying that he had been beaten and tortured and forced to sign a confession.
*188Commonwealth v. Williams, supra, is also instructive. There appellant’s only defense was a general denial. We concluded “[bjecause of the number of these convictions and their similarity to the charge for which appellant was being tried, this evidence would have tended to smear the character of the appellant to such an extent that an unbiased and impartial determination of guilt or innocence would have been rendered improbable if not impossible. The relevancy of this evidence to attack appellant’s credibility, therefore, was overshadowed by its propensity for prejudice.” Id., 273 Pa.Super. at 393, 417 A.2d at 705.
So in the instant case, the series of prior convictions was such that, had the jury been apprised of them, an unbiased determination of guilt or innocence would have been rendered improbable, if not impossible, of attainment.
The Commonwealth failed to demonstrate that the need for this evidence overcame its inherent potential for prejudice. The Commonwealth had available to it substantial means by which to prove appellant’s guilt. In addition to appellant’s confession, appellant had been positively identified by the victim and had identified himself by leaving his name on the front seat of the victim’s car when he abandoned it in the face of police pursuit. Appellant’s prior convictions, therefore, had a limited relevancy which, if received, would have destroyed appellant’s opportunity for trial before an unbiased jury. The trial court’s ruling effectively prevented appellant from testifying on his own behalf. Under the circumstances of this case, therefore, I am constrained to conclude that it was an abuse of discretion to hold prior convictions admissible to attack appellant’s credibility.