Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Law that doesn't allow prior crimes to be admitted in a New Trial

My son is in jail and was charged with Spousal abuse. Even though it was the wife who hit him in the chest and broke her wrist, only he was charged. He attended anger management classes for a year, went to his probation meetings and then his p.o. was changed and when he called him 3 different times and the p.o. did not call him back until after his meeting expired the p.o. finally called and told him to turn himself in, which he did. They set him up for court appearances over that year and finally put him in jail for a year. He did not want to go to trial, because of his prior crimes for which he spent 3 years in prison, because he felt the court could use this prior information against him. His court appointed attorney was no help at all, in fact he couldn't care less what happened to my Son. My question (in the future) Can his prior record be used against him in a Jury trial? I wanted him to fight this entire charge from the beginning, because his wife was the one that hurt herself, and now it's on his record for the rest of his life, and he's not a violent man. I was told there was something called Ricco's (sp) law that disallows prior crimes to be admitted during a trial. T or F?

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