Motion to Exclude Prior Conviction Under Federal Rule of Evidence 609

This sample motion argues for exclusion of the use of a defendant’s prior conviction for impeachment purposes and relies on social science to explain both the extreme unfair prejudice that would result from admission and the lack of probative value for impeachment purposes. Specifically, it argues that jurors will improperly rely on propensity-based reasoning if they know about a prior conviction (pgs. 3-5); jurors are more likely to rely on improper propensity-based reasoning when the prior conviction and current charge are similar (pgs. 5-7); where defendant is a Black man and his prior conviction is for a crime of violence, admission of his prior conviction will prompt jurors to rely on unfair stereotypes about Black men as inherently violent (pgs. 7-9); limiting instructions are ineffective to stop jurors’ propensity-based reasoning (pgs. 9-12); jurors are more likely to improperly rely on prior convictions in cases that rely entirely on circumstantial evidence (pgs. 12-13); and prior convictions are not probative as to future truthfulness (pgs. 13-16)