113 Iowa 442 | Iowa | 1901
Plaintiff was examined as a witness on his own behalf, and defendant offei’ed in evidence the record of plaintiff’s conviction in the United States district court for the Northern district of Iowa for the offense of carrying on the business of a liquor dealer without first having paid the special tax therefore required by the revenue laws of the United States. The evidence was objected to on the ground that it did not appear from the record offered that the offense •charged is a felony, as defined by the. laws of the state of Iowa, nor that it is a felony under the laws of the United States, nor that it was punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, and also in general that it was incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. These, objections were overruled, and the record was admitted, and, if in this ruling there was error, then, unquestionably, prejudice is presumed to have resulted, and the judgment should be reversed. In
“Sec. 4602. Facts which have heretofore caused the exclusion of testimony may still be shown for the purpose of lessening its credibility.”
“Sec. 4-613. A witness may be interrogated as to his previous conviction for a felony; but no further proof is competent except the record thereof.”
These sections, which appeared substantially in their present form in the Code of 1851, and have been retained ever since, have not been interpreted by this court with reference to the questions here presented, and require some consideration. The first of these follows the general section introduced into the Code of 1851, and ever since in force, declaring that every human being of sufficient capacity to understand the obligations of an oath is a competent witness. That provision removed the common-law disability of a witness on account of infamy, and the object of the provision found in section 4602 was undoubtedly to make the evidence of such a conviction as would have rendered the witness incompetent at common law, admissible to affect the credibility of his testimony. Section 4613 was enacted for a somewhat different purpose, as will appear from the connection in which it has been found ever since it was first adopted. It follows provisions declaring that the witness is not to be excused from answering questions on the ground that he would thereby be subjected to a civil liability, but that when the matter sought to be elicited would tend to- render him criminally liable, etc., he is not compelled to answer. Under the common law, without regard to statutory provision, it has
We have to inquire, therefore, whether under Code, section 4602, this record was admissible as affirmative evidence on the part of defendant for the purpose of impeaching the ■credibility of plaintiff as a witness, and the question at once .arises whether at common law the record of such conviction •could have been introduced to show him incompetent, to testify; for that section authorizes proof of “facts which have heretofore caused the exclusion of testimony” — that is, facts ■which under the common law, as it was in force in this state prior to the incorporation of this provision into the Code of 1851, would have rendered him incompetent. By the common law, a witness who has been convicted of an infamous
There is some suggestion, that conviction in another jurisdiction should be admitted as affecting the credibility, although not operative as a disqualification. Com. v. Knapp, '9 Pick. 496, 511. But that ground is covered in this state by Code, section 4613, which evidently was intended to limit previous convictions in general, as affecting credibility, to cases of felony. Hanners v. McClelland, 74 Iowa, 318, 322; Kitteringham v. Dance, 58 Iowa, 632, 634; and1 see Utely v. Merrick, 11 Metc. (Mass.) 302. Perhaps, under Code, section 4613, the conviction for a felony in another jurisdiction may be shown to affect the credibility of the witness, but the record here introduced was not of conviction for a felony as already pointed out, and therefore was not admissible under this section. The admission of the record of plaintiff’s conviction in the federal court was therefore error prejudicial to the plaintiff. — Eeversed.