John Paul Stevens

“ These choices spawn a corollary question: must a judge allow prior felony impeachment of all civil witnesses as well as all criminal prosecution witnesses, or is Rule 609 (a) (1) inapplicable to civil cases, in which event Rule 403 would authorize a judge to balance in such cases? Because the plain text does not resolve these issues, we must examine the history leading to enactment of Rule 609 as law.
At common law a person who had been convicted of a felony was not competent to testify as a witness. ”

“ The absence of balances within only two aspects of the Rule-crimen falsi convictions and felony convictions of witnesses other than those whose impeachment would prejudice a criminal defendant-must be given its proper effect. ”

“ In 1942, the American Law Institute proposed a rule that would have given the trial judge discretion in all cases [12] to exclude evidence of prior convictions of any witness if "its probative value is outweighed by the risk that its admission will . . . create substantial danger of undue prejudice. . . ." [13] Model Code of Evidence, Rule 303 (1942) ; see Rule 106. No such evidence could be admitted against a witness-accused unless he first introduced "evidence for the sole purpose of supporting his credibility." Rule 106 (3) . ”

“ Given liberal federal discovery rules, the inapplicability of the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination, and the need to prove their case, civil litigants almost always must testify in depositions or at trial. Denomination as a civil defendant or plaintiff, moreover, is often happenstance based on which party filed first or on the nature of the suit. [7] Evidence that a litigant or his witness is a convicted felon tends to shift a jury's focus from the worthiness of the litigant's position to the moral worth of the litigant himself. ”

“ The only contemporaneous congressional enactment governing impeachment by prior convictions stated:
"No person shall be incompetent to testify, in either civil or criminal proceedings, by reason of his having been convicted of crime, but such fact may be given in evidence to affect his credit as a witness, either upon the cross-examination of the witness or evidence aliunde. ”

“ Assuming that all impeaching evidence has at least minimal probative value, and given that the evidence of plaintiff Green's convictions had some prejudicial effect on his case-but surely none on defendant Bock's-balancing according to the strict language of Rule 609 (a) (1) inevitably leads to the conclusion that the evidence was admissible. In fact, under this construction of the Rule, impeachment detrimental to a civil plaintiff always would have to be admitted. ”

“ Rule 6-09, forerunner of Federal Rule of Evidence 609, allowed all crimen falsi and felony convictions evidence without mention of judicial discretion. [17] The Committee reasoned that " [d] angers of unfair prejudice, confusion of issues, misleading the jury, waste of time, and surprise" inherent in the admission of evidence of witness misconduct "tend to disappear or diminish" when the evidence is based on a conviction. ”

“ Far from welcoming this innovation, the Federal Department of Justice in 1969 proposed changing the code to overrule Luck, and in 1970 Congress amended the District of Columbia Code to provide that both prior felony and crimen falsi impeaching evidence "shall be admitted." ”

“ While in custody at a county prison, petitioner Paul Green obtained work-release employment at a car wash. On his sixth day at work, Green reached inside a large dryer to try to stop it. A heavy rotating drum caught and tore off his right arm. ”