Can a jury consider a witness's prior felony conviction in assessing credibility?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from People v. James, A127534 (Cal. App. 2011):

In People v. Lomeli, supra, 19 Cal.App.4th 649, the court instructed the jury that it could consider a witness's prior felony conviction in assessing credibility, but the witness had been impeached only with a misdemeanor conviction. The court observed that "In the instant case, the jury was advised that in making its credibility determination, it could take into account the witness's prior conviction of a felony or misdemeanor. Then, within the same category of witness credibility, the jury was further instructed it must only consider the fact that the witness was convicted of a felony for the purpose of determining the believability of the witness." (Id. at p. 656.) The court concluded, that "it is not reasonably probable, given the sequence of instructions and their content, the closing arguments in which counsel specifically addressed the limited purpose for which defendant's prior convictions, both felony and misdemeanor, could be considered, i.e., defendant's credibility, that the jury was confused about how it would consider the misdemeanors." (Ibid.)

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