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Miller v. State12/14/1989
Appellant, Lee Vincent Miller, seeks reversal of his conviction for aggravated assault and battery, contending that the district court erroneously admitted evidence concerning a 1983 felony conviction in Los Angeles for possession of PCP with intent to sell. Miller contends that admission of this evidence violated W.R.E. 609(a). Appellee argues that the evidence was admissible under the same rule.
We affirm.
Miller and his victim had been drinking whiskey and beer at a party when they began to argue. The victim verbally threatened Miller, punctuating his threats with racial epithets. Apparently, Miller had gained some knowledge of his victim's physical prowess by witnessing him beat up three cowboys in one night and by engaging in a public fist fight with him a few months before. Fearing a beating and concerned that his recently injured leg would prevent him from adequately defending himself, Miller stabbed his victim in the abdomen with a knife, inflicting a potentially life-threatening injury.
During the trial, the prosecutor sought to admit into evidence a variety of appellant's prior criminal convictions, primarily to contradict intimations from Miller's testimony that he was a peaceable man. The district court did not view that testimony as having placed in issue his character as a peaceable man, and it refused to admit those prior convictions. The record then becomes somewhat obscure. After defense objections to admission of the prior convictions were sustained, the prosecutor asked:
"MR. BLONIGEN: I will still be allowed to go into the other?
"MR. RAYMOND [defense counsel]: I guess while we are here, what is the extent the Court will allow him to inquire, as I understand it, have you been convicted of it.
"MR. BLONIGEN: And when.
"THE COURT: Okay."
The following cross-examination of Miller then took place, without an objection by the defense:
"Q. Mr. Miller, you previously discussed why people may have referred to you and about the name Ragsdale. Do you remember that testimony?
"A. Yes, sir.
"Q. It is also true you used the name of John Ragsdale, isn't it?
"A. I used it once.
"Q. And one of the reasons you used that name in 1983 in Los Angeles you were convicted of a felony, isn't that right?
"A. I don't recall what felony that was or what the charge was.
"Q. The charge, was it not, possession of PCP with intent to sell, was it not?
"A. Well, that was possession when they busted me, it was possession of and sales both, but it wasn't, they dropped from possession of to sell to possession.
"Q. You were subsequently convicted of the felony of selling in that?
"A. I don't know if it was a felony.
"Q. You received 36 months probation?
"A. Well, let me think, it was a little more than that, five years, but at the time I got probation I did 2 and a half years and it was becoming monotonous as far as interfering with my job, and I would have to take off my job two or three times a week and go check, and my boss was kind of getting upset, so I went to my probation officer and asked him any way I could go back to court and ask them to just give me the six months, because I couldn't do no more time myself any more time on the job, so we took it back to court and they gave me six months. I didn't have no more probation, and still had my job when I got out, but I don't know if it was a misdemeanor or a felony or not."
Appellant now asserts that the admission of this testimony violated W.R.E. 609(a), which provides in pertin
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