In Prosecution for Possession of a Firearm by Ineligible Person, Error in Admitting For Impeachment Purposes Defendant's Prior Conviction for Same Offense Was Harmless.

 State v. Jones, Minn.Ct.App., Unpublished, 3/31/2009.  During a party that Mr. Jones and his girlfriend hosted, they began to argue.  During the argument, Mr. Jones brandished a gun.  A guest at the party saw Mr. Jones with the gun.  Police found a gun under the hood of a car that was parked in Jones' garage; forensic testing found Jones' partial DNA profile.  The state charged Mr. Jones with assault and with possession of a firearm by an ineligible person.  At trial, the trial court ruled that Mr. Jones could be impeached by evidence of a four year old conviction of the same offense. In light of that ruling, he decided not to testify.

In exercising its discretion to admit or exclude evidence of a prior conviction for impeachment purposes the court is to consider what's come to be known as the Jones factors, State v. Jones, 271 N.W.2d 534 (Minn. 1978):

1) the impeachment value of the prior crime, (2) the date of the conviction and the defendant‟s subsequent history, (3) the similarity of the past crime with the charged crime (the greater the similarity, the greater the reason for not permitting use of the prior crime to impeach), (4) the importance of defendant‟s testimony, and (5) the centrality of the credibility issue.

The appellate court assessed each of the factors, starting with (1)the impeachment value.  The trial court had found that impeachment value was high:

I think the jury should be given an opportunity to review the entire person here. They should not be given the misimpression that [Jones is] not capable of committing this offense. Since obviously he has been convicted of it before.

Minnesota opinions have relied upon an "entire person" rationale to conclude that impeachment value is high; also, the prior offense need not involve dishonesty.  Nonetheless, because Mr. Jones' prior offense has no aspect of dishonesty it lacks any significant impeachment value beyond this "entire person" rationale.  More troubling to the appellate court was the trial court's remark that the prior conviction showed Mr. Jones' capability of committing the charged offense.  The purpose of admitting evidence of a prior conviction, the appellate court pointed out, is limited to helping the jury decide whether a defendant is telling the truth when testifying.  So, this factor provides only "slight support" for admission.

The next factor, (2) age of prior conviction, weighs in favor of admission.  Not only was the conviction just four some years old, Mr. Jones had only been out of prison on that prior conviction for two months; the prior conviction thus had more probative value than an older conviction. 

The court next looked at (3) the similarity of the past crime to the charged crime.  Here, it's identical, not just similar.  It thus weighs "very heavily" against admission.  The next factor, (4) importance of Mr. Jones' testimony, although a "close call" weighs "slightly against" admission, even though Jones' girlfriend testified that he did not have a firearm.  The last factor - centrality of Jones' credibility - weighed in favor of admissibility, even though the appellate court was somewhat dismissive of the trial court's rationale in reaching the same conclusion.

The winner, please:

Here, the “whole person” rationale lends relatively weak support for admission under the first factor, impeachment value, particularly given that the prior conviction was not for a crime of dishonesty. The second factor, the age of the prior conviction, and the fifth factor, the centrality of Jones‟s credibility, weigh more strongly in favor of admission given that the prior conviction is relatively recent and his credibility is important because of the testimony of the other witnesses. But the third factor, the similarity of the crime charged, weighs very heavily against admission due to the degree to which Jones would be prejudiced by the admission of evidence of his prior conviction that is not merely similar, but identical, to one of the charged offenses. The nature and severity of this potential prejudice is illustrated by the district court‟s misguided reliance on the proposition that the prior conviction would demonstrate that Jones was “capable of” the current crime. And the importance of the defendant‟s testimony, the fourth factor, also weighs slightly against the admission of this impeachment evidence.

Because the third and fourth factors weigh "heavily against" admission, it was error to admit the prior conviction.  (Just how the fourth factor jumped from "slightly against" to "heavily against" isn't explained.)  But, to Mr. Jones' dismay, I'm sure, the error was harmless.