please help, I had 1 647b in my entire life iw as wrongly convicted & I had the 647b expounged, but I really need to clear my name i have had  no other LE contacts in my life, I have  agreat FICA score, I am highly educated person But I am going through a personal injury claim (my body was broken in half)  by an 18 wheeler accident, I was the passenger, all they want to talk about is this 647b that was expounged, in the meantime I have been going through multiple surgeries, and living a life of loneliness. thanks, everybody

So sorry to hear about your ordeal.

There really isn't much you can do beyond getting an expungement.  You could try to get a court to declare you were actually innocent of the charge, but that is a difficult, expensive and time-consuming process which rarely succeeds.  You could also hope for a pardon from the governor, but your chances there are also pretty slim.

Your prior (which is probably a 647(b) and not a 647b, as the latter statute is rarely invoked) is not relevant to whether you were injured by the defendant or to the necessity and costs of your treatment, which are the central issues in your case.  

But in the eyes of the law it probably is relevant to your credibility.  Prostitution is considered a crime of moral turpitude, and conviction of such a crime is usually admissible to impeach a witness's or party's credibility.  The information is made available to jurors so they can decide whether to believe your testimony.  The theory is that people who commit crimes of moral turpitude are much more likely to lie under oath than those who have not.

Do you have a lawyer in the PI case?  If not, try to get one.  There are arguments which might persuade the judge to exclude evidence of your conviction from evidence at the time of trial, but the defendant probably is entitled to learn about it in the discovery stage in order to support its position that the evidence should come in.

I have lawyer & I have not said much about the case I was passenger,the facts of my case is about my  medical records, I have disclosed all my records over the last 20 years I also am celibete (8 yrears) the 647(b) was 5 years ago.. when I was celibete...I still don't know why they want to focus in on the BS that was expounged anyway, I have 8 years of college I am doctorate level & I do not drink or smoke.
should I get a judge trial rather than a jury?

I respectfully disagree that a crime of "moral turpitude" is relevant or admissible evidence in a PI case.  Only crimes of "crimens falsii" (i.e. dishonesty) are admissible, i.e. theft, retail theft, credit card fraud, forgery, etc.  Lawyers do ask about criminal records during discovery (i.e. interrogatories and depositions).  However, your first instinct is correct - a prostitution arrest is irrelevant and an expunged conviction likely qualifies as completely inadmissible as legally non-existent.

I cried & cried after Sidone's responce,

I could not believe anyone would say I was a bad person & not credible, I am facing very serious life threating surgey ahead , I am in disabled & my life is not much of anything, ikept crying because I felt so victomized by the 647 illegal arrest, the pig was an alcoholic predater & iwa sarrested without a violation, so 5 years later I am still being terrorized by this injustice, now I have some hope with your answer Stray Cat

My prior response has been badly misunderstood.

I never said cathyb is a bad person, that she isn't credible, or that her prior conviction would "prove" she isn't credible.  All I said was that the prosecution would be allowed to tell the jury about her past and could argue she isn't credible in light of it.  There is a big difference between saying the DA can use this evidence to challenge her credibility (which is what I really said) and saying that she has none (which is what cathyb and mrstan both seem to think I said), let alone that she is a bad person (which cathyb also seems to think I said).

If I believed cathyb was a bad person based on her history I would have no business being on this board.  Those of you who have read my responses over the years know that I am not judgmental, especially about escorting.  I'm saddened that my response has been interpreted the way it has.

I'm even more saddened that my response so upset cathyb.  What upset her, though, was a misunderstanding of what I wrote and not what I actually said.

"Moral turpitude" is not a term I made up.  It is a legal term of art used by courts throughout the English-speaking world.  California's courts have held that prostitution is indeed a crime of moral turpitude. (People v. Chandler (1997) 56 Cal.App.4th 703, 707-709.)  Acts of moral turpitude are admissible to impeach a witness's credibility even if they never result in a conviction (People v. Wheeler (1992) 4 Cal.4th 284, 297, fn. 7), so the fact that cathyb's conviction was expunged won't prevent the circumstances which led to that conviction -- or circumstances of other such acts -- from being offered at trial to attack her credibility.  

A conviction that has been expunged is rougly equivalent to one which was never entered, but expungement deals only with what happened in court and not what happened in the outside world.  Because her history could have been used against her even if she had never been charged, the fact that a conviction went on and then off her record changes nothing.

Straycat19 disputes whether "a crime of 'moral turpitude'is relevant or admissible evidence in a PI case", but it definiteley is relevant (like all evidence, whether it is admissible is a case-specific quetion that can't be answered in such broad strokes).  The credibility of witnesses is always an issue, and prior acts of moral turpitude can be used to attack that credibility because the law has deemed them relevant.  This is true of any kind of case in the courts of this state.  She could just as easily be facing the same issue even if hers was a probate case.

I never said I liked this rule or that it is fair, especially in cathyb's situation.  All I said was that this is how the law works, and I was right.

Having said all this, I think cathyb has a good chance of keeping the evidence out of court.  Evidence Code section 352 says that evidence which is substantially more prejudicial than probabtive should be excluded.  There is a very good chance that a court would exclude the evidence from your trial on this basis.  In fact, this is what I had in mind when I wrote in my original response that "there are arguments which might persuade the judge to exclude evidence of your conviction from evidence at the time of trial".  This really is an argument she should have a lawyer make for her instead of trying on her own, since there is case law to support either side of the argument and the other side's lawyers will thus have ammunition she will need to match.

-- Modified on 12/24/2006 3:56:17 PM

What Sidone is saying is factual.
However, lets look at this from a jury's point of view. A jury will more then likely see such testimony as an act of desperation on opposing counsel's part and could likely backfire.
It is likely that a judge would deem the, (moral terpitude) testimony too predudicial in any event. This is not a criminal case.
Besides, PI cases are generally settled without a jury present.
I would not worry about it, and you should discuss this issue with your own attorney.