Miller v. State, 53044
| Decision Date | 20 April 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 53044,53044 |
| Citation | 549 S.W.2d 402 |
| Parties | Smiley MILLER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
This is an appeal from a conviction for murder where the court assessed punishment at life imprisonment after the jury had found the appellant guilty and that he had twice previously been convicted of felonies as alleged in the indictment.
Appellant's first ground of error contends that at the trial which commenced on November 17, 1975 the State improperly impeached his testimony on cross-examination over proper objection by the introduction of three prior convictions: a 1950 conviction for murder without malice, a conviction for assault to commit murder in 1956, and a 1962 conviction for burglary by firearms from which the appellant was discharged from the penitentiary on October 11, 1963. He contends the prior convictions were too remote to affect his credibility.
In Penix v. State, 488 S.W.2d 86, 88 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), and again in McClendon v. State, 509 S.W.2d 851, 856 (Tex.Cr.App.1974), this court said:
"Even though this court has never 'undertaken to fix arbitrarily and absolutely a space of time which would characterize such testimony as too remote', there seems to have developed a rule of thumb or guideline that such should not be admitted if the time lapse exceeds ten years . . . On the other hand, the tendency has been that the trial court's discretion to admit such conviction has generally been upheld if the period of time was less than ten years."
The reason for the adoption of the remoteness limitation on impeachment evidence is that a remote conviction is a poor indication of the accused's present character. Bustillos v. State, 464 S.W.2d 118 (Tex.Cr.App.1971). A remote conviction for a felony or a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, measured from the time of a witness' release from prison, must have occurred at a time sufficiently recent to have some bearing on the present credibility of the witness. Bustillos v. State, supra. Thus in McClendon v. State, supra, the admission of a prior murder conviction in which twelve years and eleven months had elapsed since the appellant's release from prison required reversal. More recently in Davis v. State, 545...
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Ex Parte Carl Eddie Miller, Applicant.
...than ten years old). 26. Sinegal v. State, 789 S.W.2d 383, 387 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1990, no pet.); see Miller v. State, 549 S.W.2d 402, 403–04 (Tex.Crim.App.1977) (reversible error to allow defendant to be impeached with remote prior convictions, the most recent being twelve years......
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Lucas v. State
...proposition by holding that evidence of extremely remote convictions cannot be admitted for purposes of impeachment. Miller v. State, 549 S.W.2d 402 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). The general rule of thumb has evolved into one stating that where the release from confinement is less than ten years prior......
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Husting v. State
...the release from confinement is less than 10 years prior, the conviction may be admitted for impeachment purposes. Miller v. State, 549 S.W.2d 402, 403 (Tex.Crim.App 1977); Davis v. State, 545 S.W.2d 147, 150 (Tex.Crim.App.1976); Bustillos v. State, 464 S.W.2d 118 (Tex.Crim.App.1971). In th......
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Hernandez v. State, 01-96-00893-CR
...must have occurred at a time sufficiently recent to have some bearing on the present credibility of the witness. Miller v. State, 549 S.W.2d 402, 403-404 (Tex.Crim.App.1977) (judgment reversed where defendant's three prior convictions admitted for impeachment, the most recent being 12 years......