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Chrisman v. Commonwealth9/16/1986
[3 VaApp Page 90] Ronald Lewis Chrisman (appellant) appeals from an order of the trial court which approved jury verdicts finding him guilty of two charges of exposing his genital parts to a child in violation of Code § 18.2-370(1); two charges of proposing that a child feel or fondle his genital parts in violation of Code § 18.2-370(3); two charges of proposing that a child submit to anal sodomy in violation of Code § 18.2-370(4); and two charges of aggravated sexual battery in violation of Code § 18.2-67.3. We granted this appeal on the single issue whether the trial court erred in ruling that appellant's prior conviction for indecent exposure was a conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude for the limited purpose of impeaching his credibility as a witness while testifying at trial in his own behalf.
On the narrow ground upon which this appeal was granted, sufficiency of the evidence to support guilt is not in issue. The facts relevant to the controverted issue are that while testifying on his own behalf appellant was asked whether previously he had been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude; that the trial court required appellant to respond; and that, as a result, it was disclosed that on a prior occasion he had been convicted pursuant to a warrant which accused him of making an obscene display or exposure of his person, or private parts in a public place, or in any place where others are present in violation of Code § 18.2-387. This crime is commonly referred to as the offense of "indecent exposure."
There is a wide variation among the states as to the admissibility of prior convictions for the purpose of impeaching the credibility of a witness. Some states refuse to admit any evidence of prior convictions, see State v. Camitsch, 626 P.2d 1250 (Mont. 1981); State v. Santiago, 492 P.2d 657 (Hawaii 1971), while others allow use of any conviction without limitation. See State v. Prather, 290 So. 2d 840 (La. 1974); Commonwealth v. West, 258 N.E.2d 22 (Mass. 1970); State v. Rush, 436 P.2d 266 (Or. 1968). The long-standing rule in Virginia is founded on the common law and lies between the two extremes.
An examination of the derivation of the rule that permits the admissibility of prior convictions of certain crimes discloses criticism of the rule and the limitations thereon. The theory for its existence is that persons who would commit those crimes are probably unworthy of belief.
By the common law a person convicted of an infamous offence was incompetent afterwards to be a witness. These offences were treason, felony and all offences founded in fraud, and which come within the general notion of the crimen falsi of the Roman law.
Mr. Bishop says, speaking of this incapacity of a witness because of conviction of an offence deemed infamous: "As a consequence of the final judgment for treason, or felony, or any misdemeanor of the sort known by the term crimen falsi, whereof all are commonly called infamous crimes, we have
the doctrine that persons convicted of any of these are not permitted to testify, when objected to, as witnesses in our courts. They are supposed to be so regardless of truth that it would be unjust to compel litigants to suffer from what they assert even under oath. Some embarrassment attends the attempt to particularize the crimes which are infamous within this rule."
Barbour v. Commonwealth, 80 Va. 287, 288-89 (1885); see also Taylor v. Beck, 24 Va. (3 Rand.) 316 (1825
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