Is a defendant's criminal record admissible in a criminal case?

As a general principle, all evidence that is logically probative of a fact in issue is admissible, subject to the trial judge’s discretion to exclude evidence that may unduly prejudice the accused’s right to a fair trial, mislead or confuse the jury, take up too much time in relation to its probative value, or require exclusion on other legal or policy grounds (Corbett per La Forest J., at 714). When an accused testifies, he puts his credibility in issue. It is accepted that a prior criminal record is one fact that bears upon the credibility of a witness. Dickson C.J.C. in Corbett, at 686, adopted the following rationale as expressed in State v. Duke, 123 A. 2d 745 (S.C.N.H., 1956), at 746: What a person is often determines whether he should be believed. When a defendant voluntarily testifies in a criminal case, he asks the jury to accept his word. No sufficient reason appears why the jury should not be informed what sort of person is asking them to take his word. In transactions of everyday life this is probably the first thing that they would wish to know. So it seems to us in a real sense that when a defendant goes onto a stand, “he takes his character with him.” Lack of trustworthiness may be evinced by his abiding and repeated contempt for laws which he is legally and morally bound to obey ... though the violations are not concerned solely with crimes involving “dishonesty and false statement.”