Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02210/USCOURTS-ca7-14-02210-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Scott Hawkins
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

In the 

United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 14‐2210

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

SCOTT HAWKINS,

Defendant‐Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 12 CR 00081 — Amy J. St. Eve, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED OCTOBER 1, 2015 — DECIDED OCTOBER 20, 2015

____________________

Before POSNER, MANION, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

MANION, Circuit Judge. Scott  Hawkins and Lester

Warfield were indicted for a Chicago bank robbery carried

out by two men in February 2012. After his arrest, Warfield

initially admitted that he and Hawkins were the robbers, but

later changed his story and claimed that he had robbed the

bank with a man named James Brooks. Before trial, Hawkins

moved to admit Warfield’s later statement implicating

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No. 14‐2210 2

Brooks as a statement against interest under Federal Rule of

Evidence 804(b)(3). The district court excluded the statement

because it lacked sufficient indicia of trustworthiness, and

Hawkins was ultimately convicted following trial. For the

reasons that follow, we affirm Hawkins’s conviction.

I. BACKGROUND

On February 3, 2012, two men robbed a Chase Bank

located on West Irving Park Road in Chicago’s North Side.

When Lester Warfield was arrested on the day of the

robbery, he told the FBI that he had robbed the bank with

Scott Hawkins. The following month, Hawkins and Warfield

were indicted for the robbery in the Northern District of

Illinois. Subsequently, on November 30, 2012, Warfield held

a proffer session with the government. During that session,

he recanted his initial statement to the FBI and, instead of

Hawkins, now alleged that he had robbed the bank with

James Brooks, also known as “Stank.” (Earlier that year,

Warfield also told a confidential informant in prison that a

masked bank robber depicted on television was a “co‐

defendant” of Warfield’s who went by the nickname

“Stank.”) Warfield eventually pleaded guilty to the bank

robbery in October 2013; notwithstanding his prior

statements, however, Warfield refused to identify the other

robber during his plea colloquy.

Prior to trial, Hawkins moved to admit Warfield’s

November 30 proffer statement regarding Brooks’s

supposed involvement in the robbery. Because Warfield

intended to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege not to

testify, Hawkins argued that the proffer statement was

admissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3) as a

statement against penal interest made by an unavailable

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No. 14‐2210 3

witness. The district court denied Hawkins’s motion and

excluded Warfield’s proffer statement on grounds that the

statement was not supported by corroborating

circumstances that clearly indicated its trustworthiness. See

Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3)(b). Hawkins was convicted of bank

robbery and subsequently sentenced to 100 months’

imprisonment. He now appeals his conviction, arguing that

the district court erred by excluding Warfield’s proffer

statement from evidence.  

II. ANALYSIS

Generally, an out‐of‐court statement offered for the truth

of the matter asserted is not admissible unless it falls within

an exception to the hearsay rule. Under the exception of Rule

804(b)(3), a hearsay statement may be admissible in a

criminal case if three conditions are met: “(1) the declarant is

unavailable as a witness, (2) the statement was against the

declarant’s penal interest when made, and (3) corroborating

circumstances clearly suggest that the statement is

trustworthy.” United States v. Jackson, 540 F.3d 578, 588 (7th

Cir. 2008) (citations and internal marks omitted). “The

proponent of the hearsay statement bears the burden of

demonstrating that each of these elements is satisfied.” Id.

(citing United States v. Robbins, 197 F.3d 829, 838 (7th Cir.

1999)).

Here, the parties do not dispute that Warfield was

unavailable as a witness because he intended to assert his

Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify. Nor does the

government contest the district court’s finding that the

proffer statement was against Warfield’s penal interest, since

it exposed him to a potentially greater sentence and

additional criminal charges. See Dist. Ct. Order at 3 (noting

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that Warfield’s proffer statement could result in perjury

charges or an enhancement for obstruction of justice). Thus,

the only issue on appeal is whether Warfield’s proffer

statement was supported by corroborating circumstances

that clearly indicated its trustworthiness.

The district court’s determination regarding the

trustworthiness of out‐of‐court statements is entitled to

considerable deference and should be upheld unless clearly

erroneous. Jackson, 540 F.3d 578, 588–89 (7th Cir. 2008) (citing

United States v. Amerson, 185 F.3d 676, 684 (7th Cir. 1999);

United States v. Hall, 165 F.3d 1095, 1112 (7th Cir. 1999)). In

United States v. Nagib, 56 F.3d 798 (7th Cir. 1995), we

identified several factors for consideration in determining

whether corroborating circumstances exist for purposes of

Rule 804(b)(3): (1) the closeness of the relationship between

the confessing party and the exculpated party; (2) whether

the statement was voluntarily made after Miranda warnings;

and (3) whether the statement was made to curry favor with

authorities. Id. at 805 (citing United States v. Garcia, 986 F.2d

1135, 1140 (7th Cir. 1993)). These factors are not exhaustive.

Courts must ultimately determine the admissibility of

statements against penal interest in light of all the

surrounding circumstances. See Jackson, 580 F.3d at 589

(citations omitted) (“We have never said ... that the

considerations we identified in Nagib were the only factors to

be weighed in determining whether corroborating

circumstances exist.”).

We find no clear error in the district court’s

determination that Warfield’s proffer statement implicating

Brooks lacked sufficient corroborating circumstances to be

admissible. First, the proffer statement was flatly

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contradicted by Warfield’s earlier statement to police that

Hawkins, not Brooks, was the second robber. Multiple

witnesses also implicated Hawkins and Warfield in the

robbery, but no witness made any mention of Brooks.1

Hawkins was likewise found to be the “major contributor”

of DNA taken from a hat that was likely worn by one of the

robbers during the robbery. (The hat matched the

appearance of the robber’s hat on the bank’s surveillance

video and was found outside a car that matched the

description of the getaway car.) Further, when Hawkins was

caught while fleeing from police shortly after the robbery, he

was found to have $2,001 on his person; and one of the bank

tellers had given exactly $2,000 to one of the robbers. Finally,

notwithstanding his prior mention of Brooks in the proffer

statement, Warfield refused to name the individual who had

robbed the bank with him when he ultimately made his

guilty plea.

Taken together, these circumstances are more than

enough to justify the district court’s finding that Warfield’s

proffer statement implicating Brooks was not sufficiently

corroborated to warrant admission under Rule 804(b)(3).

Indeed, not only do the relevant circumstances cast doubt on

the credibility of Warfield’s proffer statement, they also

                                                  1 For example, one eyewitness who was standing outside the bank

during the robbery identified Hawkins and Warfield as the men he saw

enter the bank and then come running out just minutes later. Tr. at 111–

21. Warfield’s nephew also implicated Hawkins and Warfield in the

robbery. Tr. at 66–81. Neither witness made any indication that one of

the robbers may have been Brooks, or for that matter that the robbers

were anyone other than Hawkins and Warfield.

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consistently corroborate the trustworthiness of Warfield’s

initial statement to police on the day of the robbery: that it

was Hawkins, not Brooks, who robbed the bank with him.

A few circumstances also appear to corroborate the

proffer statement—specifically, the three Nagib factors and

Warfield’s vague comment about “Stank” to the confidential

informant—but these circumstances pale in comparison to

the host of significant contravening circumstances that

undermine the statement’s credibility. Accordingly, when

viewed as a whole, the circumstances do not “clearly

suggest” that Warfield’s proffer statement was trustworthy.

See Jackson, 540 F.3d at 589 (despite several corroborating

circumstances, statement against interest was properly

excluded where other circumstances—including a prior

contradictory statement by the declarant—“strongly

detract[ed] from any corroboration”).

Hawkins argues at length that the district court erred by

considering “anticipated trial evidence” to evaluate the

proffer statement’s credibility, rather than limiting its

consideration to the “context” in which the statement was

made. But courts are not permitted, let alone required, to

deliberately ignore circumstances relevant to the

corroboration inquiry based merely on the ways in which

those circumstances may be characterized. The law calls only

for the consideration of “corroborating circumstances”

clearly indicating trustworthiness. It makes no difference

whether those circumstances are instead called “context,” or

whether they are drawn from evidence that happens to be

anticipated at trial. Nothing in Rule 804(b)(3) confines the

judge’s consideration of relevant circumstances in this way.

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Along the same lines, Hawkins contends that the district

judge “usurp[ed] the jury’s role as the ultimate fact‐finder”

by assessing the available evidence to determine if the

proffer statement was trustworthy. As we previously

emphasized in Jackson, however, it is the province of the

judge to determine the admissibility of evidence; and it is

therefore the judge’s role, not the jury’s, to determine

whether sufficient corroborating circumstances exist under

Rule 804(b)(3). Jackson, 540 F.3d at 590. See also Fed. R. Evid.

104(a) (preliminary questions of admissibility are left to the

court); Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3) advisory committee’s note to

1972 amendment (citation omitted) (Rule 804(b)(3)’s

corroboration requirement is a “requirement preliminary to

admissibility”).

Because we conclude that the district judge did not

clearly err by excluding Warfield’s proffer statement, we do

not reach the government’s alternative argument that any

error was harmless. The district court properly found that

the proffer statement was not supported by sufficient

corroborating circumstances, and we affirm on that basis

alone.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM Hawkins’s

conviction.

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