I disagree (Hey! What a surprise, huh?)
The weight of involvement, even suspicion, in the second case is against CHARACTER, rather than the truth of this or that individual chunk o’ evidence or testimony.
We have contradictory accounts of an event. In the trial of fact, the jury has to assess the reliability of this oor that witness. Whom will they believe when they can’t believe both, and why this one rather than that one?
If the defense is allowed to say, “Even the government has evidence that this witness is or is rapidly becoming a habitual criminal, and to show some of the evidence, it goes to character which goes to credibility.
So I think it does have bearing. It’s not dispositive all by itself, I guess, but if it comes down to this one says v. that one says, the fact that that one seems to have contempt for the law would seem to be relevant.
A friend was tried for sexual battery. (I tried to get a sexual battery, but it turns out vibrators run on regular batteries - joke) The testimony of his landlord that he paid his rent on time, took good care of the house, was friendly, and pious was admissible, even though plenty of people who commit sexual assault of one kind or another have nice lawns and credit ratings.
I don’t know federal rules of evidence, I scarcely know Virginia rules of evidence, but I’ve been at enough trials to know character testimony, pro or con, is admissible, even if the testimony does not relate in detail to the evidence given by the person whose character is under discussion.
And besides, whether is legally justified or not, a lot of trials are adjuciated on the basis of whether or not the alleged “victim” “needed shooting”. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not, but it’s a real thing.
I’m not a lawyer, so this should be taken with that in mind. Character testimony applies more to whether someone would have committed a crime they are charged with, not with whether the person would lie under oath.
Generally you must show like-kind evidence, so to introduce otherwise irrelevant information to impeach, that impeachment should be of the same type. If you want to show a person would lie, you introduce evidence they lied. If you want to show a person would commit a rape, you introduce evidence of a prior rape.
Past criminal convictions are generally relevant against a defendant.
But non-like-kind nefarious conduct isn’t. And the rules for impeaching witnesses are different and generally more strict, as we want to limit the ability to put witnesses on trial (and thus discouraging people from testifying).
Thus when the defence in this case tried to introduce the allegation of a 2nd drug bust, the first thing the judge had to do was determine if the information was of like kind. To do so, the judge assumes the allegation is correct, and rules on whether if true it is germane. The judge in this case decided that even if it was proven he had a 2nd drug bust, it would not appropriately impugn his testimony (because it would have no bearing on his truthfulness).
I don’t know if that ruling was correct, I can only say that I understand it and it appears rational.
Fortunately, as I have argued to others on the nifong matter, we don’t let one person be a judge, jury, and executioner. We have an entire system built to prevent innocent people from being declared guilty. Part of that is an appeals process which is going now. If the evidence of C/R’s innocence, and Suttons corruption, is so overwhelmingly obvious, the intelligent, experienced, and well-trained judges of the appeals court will certainly be able to see that and rule accordingly.
If they throw out the conviction, I will be fine with that. If they don’t, it will indicate once again that my position is not absurd as many here suggest (but I imagine the response will be to accuse the judges of the appeals court of SOMETHING untoward).
So far, the list of people who are part of the evil is already quite large. Sutton, the female prosecuter, the judge in the case, every juror who didn’t recant afterwords. The BP agent who investigated the case. The BP agents who work with C/R, along with their supervisors and the head of the BP. The crime lab. Pretty much the entire DHS. Gonzales and his drug-dealing family. George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney.
So it’s no big deal adding a few more judges to the list.