CALIFORNIA EVIDENCE: CIVIL AND CRIMINAL
...Witness Credibility Evidence
......Prior Convictions
.........Cases: Use of Prior Misdemeanors
 10 Cards On This Topic:
  • Evidence of W’s misdemeanor conduct—striking ex-H with a rock during a dispute—did not strongly demonstrate moral turpitude and would not have provided jury much assistance in assessing her credibility
  • Fact of misdemeanor conviction inadmissible on hearsay grounds, but misdemeanor conduct may be admissible to impeach if reflects moral turpitude & relevant to W credibility; court must still do Evid. Code 352 weighing.
  • Conduct amounting to misdemeanor may be admitted to impeach witness.
  • Though witness' prior conviction for discharging firearm with gross negligence was crime of moral turpitude, court did not abuse its discretion in excluding it as a form of impeachment under EC 352
  • Sexual battery is a crime of moral turpitude—the degrading use of another, against her will, for one's own sexual arousal is deserving of moral condemnation.
  • No error to exclude evidence of V's pending misdemeanor cases where irrelevant to V's credibility and criminal conduct did not involve moral turpitude.
  • D's failure to appear at trials as ordered were not acts of moral turpitude.
  • Misdemeanor convictions admissible for impeachment.
  • Though due process compels disclosure of W's misdemeanor convictions when requested by D, harmless error to deny request where W impeached by prior serious felonies.
  • Court must instruct D's misdemeanor convictions could only be used for purposes of credibility.


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