Under Rule 609(a)(1), for a crime that involves a dishonest act or false statement, admissibility must be regardless of punishment.

• A. The witness is the defendant
• B. The crime occurred more than 10 years ago
• C. The crime did not involve dishonest acts
• D. The crime involved a dishonest act or false statement

Answer: (D)

The key idea here is impeachment by prior conviction under Rule 609(a)(1). This rule lets you use a conviction to attack a witness’s credibility only if the crime involved dishonesty or a false statement and was punishable by more than one year in prison. The defining factor among crimes for this rule is honesty: crimes that involve dishonest acts or false statements are the ones that count.

That makes the choice stating that the crime involved a dishonest act or false statement the best fit. If a prior conviction involves dishonesty or a false statement (and meets the sentence-length threshold), it’s eligible to come in under this rule to impeach credibility.

Why the other ideas don’t fit: choosing the option about the witness being the defendant pulls in a different subsection of Rule 609 that has its own standards, not the predicate required by 609(a)(1). The option about the crime occurring more than 10 years ago relates to timing rules in Rule 609(b) and isn’t the primary criterion in 609(a)(1). The option stating the crime did not involve dishonest acts would not meet the trigger of this rule. And the statement about punishment being irrelevant isn’t accurate; the crime still needs to have been punishable by more than a year.