Excerpt from “The Mis-Characterization of the Negro”: A Race Critique of the Prior Conviction Impeachment Rule

By Montre D. Carodine, 84 Indiana Law Journal 521 (2009)

In this article, Professor Carodine critiques the operation of Rule 609 and argues that the racism of the criminal justice system undercuts the reliability of convictions produced by that system – which in turn undermines the value of those convictions for assessing credibility. Please read the except below (and you can find the full article here).

In addition to exposing the ways ostensibly racially-neutral evidence laws have disproportionate racial impacts, this excerpt is also useful for reviewing the operation of Rule 609 and understanding the implications of the rule for criminal defendants.

This book, and all H2O books, are Creative Commons licensed for sharing and re-use with the exception of certain excerpts. Any excerpts from the Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, and the Model Penal Code are copyright by The American Law Institute. Excerpts are reproduced with permission, not as part of a Creative Commons license.