law-abiding and upright manner.” The district court excluded the convictions for two reasons, because of the 1975 pardon and under Rule 609(b) because they were more than 10 years old. However, McMur-rey was allowed to testify that Stout told him he had been to prison before. Rule 609(c) and the accompanying commentary draw a distinction between pardons based on actual innocence or a finding of rehabilitation (which make the underlying conviction inadmissible for impeachment) and pardons granted solely to restore civil rights (which have no relevance to character and do not impair the admissibility of the underlying conviction). Fed.R.Evid. 609(c) & accompanying Notes of Committee on the JudiciaRY House RepoRT No. 93-650; see also United States v. Wiggins, 566 F.2d 944, 946 (5th Cir.) (<HOLDING>), cert. denied, 436 U.S. 950, 98 S.Ct. 2859, 56
holding that a mere failure to accord procedural protection called for by state law or regulation does not of itself amount to a denial of due process holding that state attorney general as member of executive department may assert claim of executive privilege recognizing that absolute judicial immunity is not grounded in any special esteem for those who perform judicial functions and certainly not from a desire to shield abuses of office but because any lesser degree of immunity could impair the judicial process itself recognizing as a matter of law executive privilege for governor holding that rule 609 shows a desire to accord a controlling consideration to rehabilitation as opposed to executive grace or judicial invalidation