State v. Broadnax
South Carolina Supreme Court
779 S.E.2d 789 (2015)
Christopher Broadnax (defendant) robbed a Church's Chicken at gunpoint and was arrested minutes later; eyewitness testimony and matching descriptions of both Broadnax and the getaway car tied him to the crime. After Broadnax testified in his own defense, the trial judge admitted evidence of three of his four prior robbery convictions, instructing the jury to use it only to assess his credibility. The jury convicted him, but the court of appeals reversed, holding his prior convictions were not automatically admissible crimes of dishonesty.
Whether courts must admit a testifying defendant's prior convictions for crimes of dishonesty automatically for impeachment, without weighing probative value against prejudice.