In what circumstances will a jury consider a defendant's prior conviction of a misdemeanor rather than a felony?

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. In our view, 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. Even without the additional two words in the limiting instruction, and upon examination of the entire cause, it is not reasonably probable that a miscarriage of justice resulted. The test of whether the jury would have reached a different verdict is based on a reasonable probability rather than on mere possibilities. (People v. Watson (1956) 46

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