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A. L. DUTTON, Warden v. Alex S. EVANS. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews A. L. DUTTON, Warden v. Alex S. EVANS.
400 U.S. 74 (91 S.Ct. 210, 27 L.Ed.2d 213)
Argued: Oct. 15, 1969.
Reargued: Oct. 15, 1970.
Decided: Dec. 15, 1970.
opinion, STEWART, THE CHIEF JUSTICE
[HTML] dissent, MARSHALL, BLACK, DOUGLAS, BRENNAN
but the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that Georgia had, indeed, denied Evans the right, guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, 'to be confronted by the witnesses against him.'
The case was originally argued last Term, but was set for reargument. 397 U.S. 1060, 90 S.Ct. 1494, 25 L.Ed.2d 682.
In order to understand the context of the constitutional question before us, a brief review of the proceedings at Evans' trial is necessary. The principal prosecution witness at the trial was Truett, the alleged accomplice who has been granted immunity. Truett described at length and in detail the circumstances surrounding the murder of the police officers. He testified that he, along with Evans and Williams, had been engaged in switching the license plates on a stolen car parked on a back road in Gwinnett County when they were accosted by the three police officers. As the youngest of the officers leaned in front of Evans to inspect the ignition switch on the car, Evans grabbed the officer's gun from its holster. Evans and Williams then disarmed the other officers at gunpoint, and handcuffed the three of them together. They then took the officers into the woods and killed them by firing several bullets into their bodies at extremely close range. In addition to Truett, 19 other witnesses testified for the prosecution.
The testimony of Shaw relating what he said Williams had told him was admitted by the Georgia trial court, and its admission upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court, upon the basis of a Georgia statute that provides: 'After the fact of conspiracy shall be proved, the declarations by any one of the conspirators during the pendency of the criminal project shall be admissible against all.'
"The rule is that so long as the conspiracy to conceal the fact that a crime has been committed or the identity of the perpetrators of the offense continues the parties to such conspiracy are to be considered so much a unit that the declarations of either are admissible against the other.' The defendant, and his co-conspirator, Williams, at the time this statement was made, were still concealing their identity, keeping secret the fact that they had killed the deceased, if they had, and denying their guilt. There was evidence sufficient to establish a prima facie case of conspiracy to steal the automobile and the killing of the deceased by the conspirators while carrying out the conspiracy, and the statement by Williams made after the actual commission of the crime, but while the conspiracy continued was admissible.'
It was the admission of this testimony of the witness Shaw that formed the basis for the appellee's claim in the present habeas corpus proceeding that he had been denied the constitutional right of confrontation in the Georgia trial court. In upholding that claim, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit regarded its duty to be 'not only to interpret the framers' original concept in light of historical developments, but also to translate into due-process terms the constitutional boundaries of the hearsay rule.'
(Footnotes omitted.) The court upheld the appellee's constitutional claim because it could find no 'salient and cogent reasons' for the exception to the hearsay rule Georgia applied in the present case, an exception that the court pointed out was broader than that applicable to conspiracy trials in the federal courts.
'This Court has recognized the admissibility against an accused of dying declarations, Mattox v. United States, 146 U.S. 140, 151, 13 S.Ct. 50, 53, 36 L.Ed. 917, and of testimony of a deceased witness who has testified at a former trial, Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 240244, 15 S.Ct. 337, 338340, 39 L.Ed. 409. See also Dowdell v. United States, supra, 221 U.S. (325), at 330, 31 S.Ct. (590), at 592; (55 L.Ed. 753); Kirby v. United States, supra, 174 U.S. (47), at 61, 19 S.Ct. (574), at 579, (43 L.Ed. 890). * * * There are other analogous situations which might not fall within the scope of the constitutional rule requiring confrontation of witnesses.'
'Our task in this case is not to decide which of these positions, purely as a matter of the law of evidence, is the sounder. The issue before us is the considerably narrower one of whether a defendant's constitutional right 'to be confronted with the witnesses against him' is necessarily inconsistent with a State's decision to change its hearsay rules * * *. While it may readily be conceded that hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause are generally designed to protect similar values, it is quite a different thing to suggest that the overlap is complete and that the Confrontation Clause is nothing more or less than a codification of the rules of hearsay and their exceptions as they existed historically at common law. Our decisions have never established such a congruence; indeed, we have more than once found a violation of confrontation values even though the statements in issue were admitted under an arguably recognized hearsay exception. The converse is equally true: merely because evidence is admitted in violation of a long-established hearsay rule does not lead to the automatic conclusion that confrontation rights have been denied.' Id., at 155156, 90 S.Ct., at 19331934 (citations and footnote omitted).
It is clear that the limited scope of the hearsay exception in federal conspiracy trials is a product, not of the Sixth Amendment, but of the Court's 'disfavor' of 'attempts to broaden the already pervasive and wide-sweeping nets of conspiracy prosecutions.' Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 404, 77 S.Ct. 963, 974, 1 L.Ed.2d 931. As Grunewald, Krulewitch, and other cases in this Court make clear, the evidentiary rule is intertwined, not only with the federal substantive law of conspiracy, but also with such related issues as the impact of the statute of limitations upon conspiracy prosecutions.
In Roberts v. Russell we held that the doctrine of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476, was applicable to the States and was to be given retroactive effect. But Bruton was a case far different from the one now before us. In that case there was a joint trial of the petitioner and a co-defendant, coincidentally named Evans, upon a charge of armed postal robbery. A postal inspector testified that Evans had confessed to him that Evans and the petitioner had committed the robbery. This evidence was, concedeedly, wholly inadmissible against the petitioner. Evans did not testify. Although the trial judge instructed the jury to disregard the evidence of Evans' confession in considering the question of the petitioner's guilt, we reversed the petitioner's conviction. The primary focus of the Court's opinion in Bruton was upon the issue of whether the jury in the circumstances presented could reasonably be expected to have followed the trial judge's instructions. The Court found that '(t)he risk of prejudice in petitioner's case was even more serious than in Douglas,' because 'the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial.' 391 U.S., at 127, 135136, 88 S.Ct., at 1628. Accordingly, we held that 'in the context of a joint trial we cannot accept limiting instructions as an adequate substitute for petitioner's constitutional right of cross-examination.' 391 U.S., at 137, 88 S.Ct., at 1628. There was not before us in Bruton 'any recognized exception to the hearsay rule,' and the Court was careful to emphasize that 'we intimate no view whatever that such exceptions necessarily raise questions under the Confrontation Clause.' 391 U.S., at 128 n. 3, 88 S.Ct., at 1624.
and we decline to do so now. We confine ourselves, instead, to deciding the case before us.
This case does not involve evidence in any sense 'crucial' or 'devastating,' as did all the cases just discussed. It does not involve the use, or misuse, of a confession made in the coercive atmosphere of official interrogation, as did Douglas, Brookhart, Bruton, and Roberts. It does not involve any suggestion of prosecutorial misconduct or even negligence, as did Pointer, Douglas, and Barber. It does not involve the use by the prosecution of a paper transcript, as did Pointer, Brookhart, and Barber. It does not involve a joint trial, as did Bruton and Roberts. And it certainly does not involve the wholesale denial of cross-examination, as did Brookhart.
In the trial of this case no less than 20 witnesses appeared and testified for the prosecution. Evans' counsel was given full opportunity to cross-examine every one of them. The most important witness, by far, was the eyewitness who described all the details of the triple murder and who was cross-examined at great length. Of the 19 other witnesses, the testimony of but a single one is at issue here. That one witness testified to a brief conversation about Evans he had had with a fellow prisoner in the Atlanta Penitentiary. The witness was vigorously and effectively cross-examined by defense counsel.
His testimony, which was of peripheral signficance at most, was admitted in evidence under a co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule long established under state statutory law. The Georgia statute can obviously have many applications consistent with the Confrontation Clause, and we conclude that its application in the circumstances of this case did not violate the Constitution.
The confrontation issue arises because the jury was being invited to infer that Williams had implicitly identified Evans as the perpetrator of the murder when he blamed Evans for his predicament. But we conclude that there was no denial of the right of confrontation as to this question of identity. First, the statement contained no express assertion about past fact, and consequently it carried on its face a warning to the jury against giving the statement undue weight. Second, Williams' personal knowledge of the identity and role of the other participants in the triple murder is abundantly established by Truett's testimony and by Williams' prior conviction. It is inconceivable that cross-examination could have shown that Williams was not in a position to know whether or not Evans was involved in the murder. Third, the possibility that Williams' statement was founded on faulty recollection is remote in the extreme. Fourth, the circumstances under which Williams made the statement were such as to give reason to suppose that Williams did not misrepresent Evans' involvement in the crime. These circumstances go beyond a showing that Williams had no apparent reason to lie to Shaw. His statement was spontaneous, and it was against his penal interest to make it. These are indicia of reliability which have been widely viewed as determinative of whether a statement may be placed before the jury though there is no confrontation of the declarant.
The decisions of this Court make it clear that the mission of the Confrontation Clause is to advance a practical concern for the accuracy of the truth-determining process in criminal trials by assuring that 'the trier of fact (has) a satisfactory basis for evaluating the truth of the prior statement.' California v. Green, 399 U.S., at 161, 90 S.Ct., at 1936. Evans exercised, and exercised effectively, his right to confrontation on the factual question whether Shaw had actually heard Williams make the statement Shaw related. And the possibility that cross-examination of Williams could conceivably have shown the jury that the statement, though made, might have been unreliable was wholly unreal.
Almost 40 years ago, in Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 54 S.Ct. 330, 78 L.Ed. 674, Mr. Justice Cardozo wrote an opinion for this Court refusing to set aside a state criminal conviction because of the claimed denial of the right of confrontation. The closing words of that opinion are worth repeating here:
'There is danger that the criminal law will be brought into contemptthat discredit will even touch the great immunities assured by the Fourteenth Amendmentif gossamer possibilities of prejudice to a defendant are to nullify a sentence pronounced by a court of competent jurisdiction in obedience to local law, and set the guilty free.' 291 U.S., at 122, 54 S.Ct., at 338.
Shaw testified that Williams made the remark at issue when Shaw 'went to his room in the hospital' and asked Williams how he made out at a court hearing on the preceding day. On cross-examination, Shaw stated that he was then in custody at the federal penitentiary in Atlanta; that he worked as a clerk in the prison hospital; that Williams was lying on the bed in his room and facing the wall; that he, Shaw, was in the hall and not in the room when he spoke with Williams; that the door to the room 'was closed'; that he spoke through an opening about 10 inches square; that the opening 'has a piece of plate glass, window glass, just ordinary window glass, and a piece of steel mesh'; that this does not impede talking through the door; and that one talks in a normal voice when he talks through that door. Shaw conceded that when he had testified at Williams' earlier trial, he made no reference to the glass in the opening in the door.
Carmen David Mabry, called by the State, testified that he was with the United States Public Health Service and stationed at the Atlanta Penitentiary. He described the opening in the door to Williams' room and said that it contained a glass 'and over that is a wire mesh, heavy steel mesh'; that he has 'never tried to talk through the door'; that, to his knowledge, he has never heard 'other people talking through the door'; that, during his 11 years at the hospital, the glass has not been out of the door; and that the hopital records disclosed that it had not been out.
I am at a loss to understand how any normal jury, as we must assume this one to have been, could be led to believe, let alone be influenced by, this astonishing account by Shaw of his conversation with Williams in a normal voice through a closed hospital room door. I note, also, the Fifth Circuit's description of Shaw's testimony as 'somewhat incredible' and as possessing 'basic incredibility.' 400 F.2d, at 828 n. 4.
In saying all this, I am fully aware that the Fifth Circuit panel went on to observe, in the footnote just cited, '(W)e are convinced that it cannot be called harmless.' And Justice Quillian, in sole dissent on the direct appeal to the Supreme Court of Georgia, stated, '(I)t obviously was prejudicial to the defendant.' 222 Ga. 392, 408, 150 S.E.2d 240, 251. However, neither the Georgia Superior Court judge who tried the case nor the Federal District Judge who held the hearing on Evans' petition for federal habeas concluded that prejudicial error was present. Also, we do not know the attitude of the Georgia Supreme Court majority, for they decided the issue strictly upon the pronounced limits of the long-established Georgia hearsay rule, 222 Ga., at 402, 150 S.E.2d, at 248, and presumably had no occasion to touch upon any alternative ground such as harmlessness. I usually would refrain from passing upon an issue of this kind adversely to a federal court of appeals, but when the trial judges do not rule, I would suppose that we are as free to draw upon the cold record as is the appellate court.
I add an observation about corroboration. Marion Calvin Perry, another federal prisoner and one who admitted numerous past convictions, including 'larceny of automobiles,' testified without objection that he had known Williams and Evans for about 10 years, and Truett for about two years; that he spoke with Williams and Evans some 25 or 30 days prior to the murders of the three police officers; that Williams owed him money; that he and Williams talked by telephone '(a)bout me stealing some cars for him'; that Williams told him that 'Alex (Evans) would know what kind of car he (Williams) would want'; that a few days later 'me and Alex talked about cars and I told him I didn't want to mess with Venson (Williams)'; that Evans said, 'if I got any, he said I could get them for him'; that seven or eight days before the murders Williams asked him by telephone whether he, Perry, 'still had the Oldsmobile switch'; that the week of the murders he argued with Evans about how much he should receive for each stolen car; that six days after the murders he saw Evans at a filling station; that they talked about the murders; that 'I said if I wanted to know who did it, I would see mine and your friend'; and that Evans 'got mad as hell' and 'told me if I thought I knowed anything about it to keep my damn mouth shut.'
This record testimony, it seems to me, bears directly and positively on the Williams-Evans-Truett car-stealing conspiracy and accomplishments and provides indisputable confirmation of Evan's role. The requirements of the Georgia corroboration rule were fully satisfied and Shaw's incredible remark fades into practical and legal insignificance.
The error here, if one exists, is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 2125, 87 S.Ct. 824, 826829, 17 L.Ed.2d 705; Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284.
Not surprisingly the difficult constitutional issue presented by this case has produced multiple opinions. Mr. Justice STEWART finds Shaw's testimony admissible because it is 'wholly unreal' to suggest that cross-examination would have weakened the effect of Williams' statement on the jury's mind. Mr. Justice BLACKMUN, while concurring in this view, finds admission of the statement to be harmless, seemingly because he deems Shaw's testimony so obviously fabricated that no normal jury would have given it credence. Mr. Justice MARSHALL answers both suggestions to my satisfaction, but he then adopts a position that I cannot accept. He apparently would prevent the prosecution from introducing any out-of-court statement of an accomplice unless there is an opportunity for cross-examination, and this regardless of the circumstances in which the statement was made and regardless of whether it is even hearsay.
The difficulty of this case arises from the assumption that the core purpose of the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment is to prevent overly broad exceptions to the hearsay rule. I believe this assumption to be wrong. Contrary to things as they appeared to me last Term when I wrote in California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 172, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1942, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970), I have since become convinced that Wigmore states the correct view when he says:
'The Constitution does not prescribe what kinds of testimonial statements (dying declarations, or the like) shall be given infra-judicially,this depends on the law of Evidence for the time being,but only what mode of procedure shall be followedi.e. a cross-examining procedurein the case of such testimony as is required by the ordinary law of Evidence to be given infra-judicially.' 5 J.Wigmore, Evidence § 1397, at 131 (3d ed. 1940) (footnote omitted).
The conversion of a clause intended to regulate trial procedure into a threat to much of the existing law of evidence and to future developments in that field is not an unnatural shift, for the paradigmatic evil the Confrontation Clause was aimed attrial by affidavit
can be viewed almost equally well as a gross violation of the rule against hearsay and as the giving of evidence by the affiant out of the presence of the accused and not subject to cross-examination by him. But however natural the shift may be, once made it carries the seeds of great mischief for enlightened development in the law of evidence.
If one were to translate the Confrontation Clause into language in more common use today, it would read: 'In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to be present and to cross-examine the witnesses against him.' Nothing in this language or in its 18th-century equivalent would connote a purpose to control the scope of the rules of evidence. The language is particularly ill-chosen if what was intended was a prohibition on the use of any hearsaythe position toward which my Brother MARSHALL is being driven, although he does not quite yet embrace it.
Nor am I now content with the position I took in concurrence in California v. Green, supra, that the Confrontation Clause was designed to establish a preferential rule, requiring the prosecutor to avoid the use of hearsay where it is reasonably possible for him to do soin other words, to produce available witnesses. Further consideration in the light of facts squarely presenting the issue, as Green did not, has led me to conclude that this is not a happy intent to be attributed to the Framers absent compelling linguistic or historical evidence pointing in that direction. It is common ground that the historical understanding of the clause furnishes no solid guide to adjudication.
A rule requiring production of available witnesses would significantly curtail development of the law of evidence to eliminate the necessity for production of declarants where production would be unduly inconvenient and of small utility to a defendant. Examples which come to mind are the Business Records Act, 28 U.S.C. 17321733, and the exceptions to the hearsay rule for official statements, learned treatises, and trade reports. See, e.g., Uniform Rules of Evidence 63(15), 63(30), 63(31); Gilstrap v. United States, 389 F.2d 6 (CA5 1968) (business records); Kay v. United States, 255 F.2d 476 (CA4 1958) (laboratory analysis). If the hearsay exception involved in a given case is such as to commend itself to reasonable men, production of the declarant is likely to be difficult, unavailing, or pointless. In unusual cases, of which the case at hand may be an example, the Sixth Amendment guarantees federal defendants the right of compulsory process to obtain the presence of witnesses, and in Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967), this Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment extends the same protection to state defendants.
Regardless of the interpretation one puts on the words of the Confrontation Clause, the clause is simply not well designed for taking into account the numerous factors that must be weighed in passing on the appropriateness of rules of evidence. The failure of Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion to explain the standard by which it tests Shaw's statement, or how this standard can be squared with the seemingly absolute command of the clause, bears witness to the fact that the clause is being set a task for which it is not suited. The task is far more appropriately performed under the aegis of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments' commands that federal and state trials, respectively, must be conducted in accordance with due process of law. It is by this standard that I would test federal and state rules of evidence.
It must be recognized that not everything which has been said in this Court's cases is consistent with this position. However, this approach is not necessarily inconsistent with the results that have been reached. Of the major 'confrontation' decisions of this Court, seven involved the use of prior-recorded testimony.
In the absence of countervailing circumstances, introduction of such evidence would be an affront to the core meaning of the Confrontation Clause. The question in each case, therefore, was whether there had been adequate 'confrontation' to satisfy the requirement of the clause. Regardless of the correctness of the results, the holding that the clause was applicable in those situations is consistent with the view of the clause I have taken.
Passing on to the other principal cases, Dowdell v. United States, 221 U.S. 325, 330, 31 S.Ct. 590, 592, 55 L.Ed. 753 (1911), held that the Confrontation Clause did not prohibit the introduction of '(d)ocumentary evidence to establish collateral facts, admissible under the common law.' While this was characterized as an exception to the clause, rather than a problem to which the clause did not speak, the result would seem correct. Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 16 L.Ed.2d 314 (1966), and Smith v. Illinois, 390 U.S. 129, 88 S.Ct. 748, 19 L.Ed.2d 956 (1968), involved restrictions on the right to cross-examination or the wholesale denial of that right. Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965), is perhaps most easily dealt with by viewing it as a case of prosecutorial misconduct. Alternatively, I would be prepared to hold as a matter of due process that a confession of an accomplice resulting from formal police interrogation cannot be introduced as evidence of the guilt of an accused, absent some circumstance indicating authorization or adoption. The exclusion of such evidence dates at least from Tong's Case, Kelying 17, 1819, 84 Eng.Rep. 1061, 1062 (K.B.1663), and is universally accepted. This theory would be adequate to account for the results of both Douglas and Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968).
The remaining confrontation case of significance is Kirby v. United States, 174 U.S. 47, 19 S.Ct. 574, 43 L.Ed. 890 (1899). In that case a record of conviction of three men for theft was introduced at Kirby's trial. The judge instructed the jury that this judgment was prima facie evidence that the goods which Kirby was accused of receiving from the three men were in fact stolen. This Court reversed, holding that since the judgment was the sole evidence of the fact of theft, Kirby had been denied his right of confrontation. In my view this is not a confrontation case at all, but a matter of the substantive law of judgments. Accord, 4 Wigmore, supra, § 1079, at 133. Indeed, the Kirby Court indicated that lack of confrontation was not at the heart of its objection when it said that the record would have been competent evidence of the fact of conviction. The correctness of the result in Kirby can hardly be doubted, but it was, I think, based on the wrong legal theory.
In light of such considerations, a person weighing the necessity for hearsay evidence of the type here involved against the danger that a jury will give it undue credit might reasonably conclude that admission of the evidence would increase the likelihood of just determinations of truth. Appellee has not suggested that Shaw's testimony possessed any peculiar characteristic that would lessen the force of these general considerations and require, as a constitutional matter, that the trial judge exercise residual discretion to exclude the evidence as unduly inflammatory. Exclusion of such statements, as is done in the federal courts, commends itself to me, but I cannot say that it is essential to a fair trial. The Due Process Clause requires no more.
According to Shaw, the statement, which implicated both Williams and Evans in the crime, was made in a prison conversation immediately after Williams' arraignment. Williams did not testify nor was he called as a witness. Nevertheless, the Court today concludes that admission of the extrajudicial statement attributed to an alleged partner in crime did not deny Evans the right 'to be confronted with the witnesses against him' guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. In so doing, the majority reaches a result completely inconsistent with recent opinions of this Court, especially Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965), and Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). In my view, those cases fully apply here and establish a clear violation of Evans' constitutional rights.
In Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965), this Court first held that 'the Sixth Amendment's right of an accused to confront the witnesses against him is * * * a fundamental right and is made obligatory on the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.' Id., at 403, 85 S.Ct., at 1067. That decision held constitutionally inadmissible a statement offered against a defendant at a state trial where the statement was originally made at a preliminary hearing under circumstances not affording the defendant an adequate opportunity for cross-examination. Indeed, we have since held that even cross-examination at a prior hearing does not satisfy the confrontation requirement, at least where the witness who made the statement is available to be called at trial. Barder v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968). 'The right to confrontation is basically a trial right. It includes both the opportunity to cross-examine and the occasion for the jury to weigh the demeanor of the witness.' Id., at 725, 88 S.Ct., at 1322.
the Court held that the prosecutor's reading of Loyd's statement in a purported attempt to refresh his memory denied Douglas' right to confrontation. 'Loyd could not be cross-examined on a statement imputed to but not admitted by him.' 380 U.S., at 419, 85 S.Ct., at 1077. Of course, Douglas was provided the opportunity to cross-examine the officers who testified regarding Loyd's statement. 'But since their evidence tended to show only that Loyd made the confession, cross-examination of them * * * could not substitute for cross-examination of Loyd to test the truth of the statement itself.'
Id., at 420, 85 S.Ct., at 1077. Surely, the same reasoning compels the exclusion of Shaw's testimony here. Indeed, the only significant difference between Douglas and this case, insofar as the denial of the opportunity to cross-examine is concerned, is that here the State did not even attempt to call Williams to testify in Evans' trial. He was plainly available to the State, and for all we know he would have willingly testified, at least with regard to his alleged conversation with Shaw.
Finally, we have applied the reasoning of Douglas to hold that 'despite instructions to the jury to disregard the implicating statements in determining the codefendant's guilt or innocence, admission at a joint trial of a defendant's extrajudicial confession implicating a codefendant violated the codefendant's right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment.' Roberts v. Russell, 392 U.S. 293, 88 S.Ct. 1921, 20 L.Ed.2d 1100 (1968), giving retroactive effect in both state and federal trials to Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). Thus Williams' alleged statement, an extrajudicial admission made to a fellow prisoner, could not even have been introduced against Williams if he had been tried in a joint trial with Evans.
Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion for reversal characterizes as 'wholly unreal' the possibility that cross-examination of Williams himself would change the picture presented by Shaw's account. A trial lawyer might well doubt, as an article of the skeptical faith of that profession, such a categorical prophecy about the likely results of careful cross-examination. Indeed, the facts of this case clearly demonstrate the necessity for fuller factual development which the corrective test of cross-examination makes possible. The plurality for reversal pigeonholes the out-of-court statement that was admitted in evidence as a 'spontaneous' utterance, hence to be believed. As the Court of Appeals concluded, however, there is great doubt that Williams even made the statement attributed to him.
Moreover, there remains the further question what if anything, Williams might have meant by the remark that Shaw recounted. Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion concedes that the remark is ambiguous. Plainly it stands as an accusation of some sort: 'If it hadn't been for * * * Evans,' said Williams, according to Shaw, 'we wouldn't be in this now.' At his trial Evans himself gave unsworn testimony to the effect that the murder prosecution might have arisen from enmities that Evans' own law enforcement activities had stirred up in the locality. Did Williams' accusation relate to Evans as a man with powerful and unscrupulous enemies, or Evans as a murderer? Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion opts for the latter interpretation, for it concludes that Williams' remark was 'against his penal interest' and hence to be believed. But at this great distance from events, no one can be certain. The point is that absent cross-examination of Williams himself, the jury was left with only the unelucidated, apparently damning, and patently damaging accusation as told by Shaw.
Although Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion for reversal concludes that there was no violation of Evans' right of confrontation, it does so in the complete absence of authority of reasoning to explain that result. For example, such facts as that Williams' alleged statement was not made during official interrogation, was not in transcript form, and was not introduced in a joint trialthough they differentiate some of the casesare surely irrelevant. Other cases have presented each of these factors,
Nor can it be enough that the statement was admitted in evidence 'under a long-established and well-recognized rule of state law.' Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion surely does not mean that a defendant's constitutional right of confrontation must give way to a state evidentiary rule. That much is established by our decision in Barber v. Page, supra, which held unconstitutional the admission of testimony in accordance with a rule similarly well recognized and long established. However, the plurality for reversal neither succeeds in distinguishing that case nor considers generally that there are inevitably conflicts between Pointer and state evidentiary rules. Rather, it attempts to buttress its conclusion merely by announcing a reluctance to equate evidentiary hearsay rules and the Confrontation Clause.
that was not the basis for its decision. Rather, the Court of Appeals found in the admission of an incriminatory and inculpating statement attributed to an alleged accomplice who was not made available for cross-examination what it termed an obvious abridgment of Evans' right of confrontation. Since the State presented no satisfactory justification for the denial of confrontation, cf. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S., at 407, 85 S.Ct., at 1069, the Court of Appeals held that under Douglas v. Alabama and this Court's other cases Evans was denied his constitutional rights.
Surely the Constitution requires at least that much when the State denies a defendant the right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him in a criminal trial. In any case, that Shaw's testimony was admitted in accordance with an established rule of state law cannot aid my Brethren in reaching their conclusion. Carried to its logical end, justification of a denial of the right of confrontation on that basis would provide for the wholesale avoidance of this Court's decisions in Douglas and Bruton,
decisions which Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion itself reaffirms. Indeed, if that opinion meant what it says, it would come very close to establishing in reverse the very equation it seeks to avoidan equation that would give any exception to a state hearsay rule a 'permanent niche in the Constitution' in the form of an exception to the Confrontation Clause as well.
Finally, the plurality for reversal apparently distinguishes the present case on the gound that it 'does not involve evidence in any sense 'crucial' or 'devastating." Despite the characterization of Shaw's testimony as 'of peripheral significance at most,' however, the possibility of its prejudice to Evans was very real. The outcome of Evans' trial rested, in essence, on whether the jury would believe the testimony of Truett with regard to Evans' role in the murder. Truett spoke as an admitted accomplice who had been immunized from prosecution. Relying on Georgia law, not federal constitutional law, the trial judge instructed the jury that 'you cannot lawfully convict upon the testimony of an accomplice alone. * * * (T)he testimony of an accomplice must be corroborated. * * * (T)he corroboration * * * must be such as to connect the defendant with the criminal act.' The State presented the testimony of a number of other witnesses, in addition to that of the alleged accomplice that tended to corroborate Evans' guilt. But Shaw's account of what Williams supposedly said to him was undoubtedly a part of that corroborating evidence.
Indeed, Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion does not itself upset the Court of Appeals' finding that the admission of Shaw's testimony, if erroneous, could not be considered harmless. Beyond and apart from the question of harmless error, Mr. Justice STEWART undertakes an inquiry, the purpose of which I do not understand, into whether the evidence admitted is 'crucial' or 'devastating.' The view is, apparently, that to require the exclusion of evidence falling short of that high standard of prejudice would bring a moment of clamor against the Bill of Rights. I would eschew such worries and confine the inquiry to the traditional questions: Was the defendant afforded the right to confront the witnesses against him? And, if not, was the denial of his constitutional right harmless beyond a reasonable doubt?
I am troubled by the fact that the plurality for reversal, unable when all is said to place this case beyond the principled reach of our prior decisions, shifts its ground and begins a hunt for whatever 'indicia of reliability' may cling to Williams' remark, as told by Shaw. Whether Williams made a 'spontaneous' statement 'against his penal interest' is the very question that should have been tested by cross-examination of Williams himself. If 'indicia of reliability' are so easy to come by, and prove so much, then it is only reasonable to ask whether the Confrontation Clause has any independent vitality at all in protecting a criminal defendant against the use of extrajudicial statements not subject to cross-examination and not exposed to a jury assessment of the declarant's demeanor at trial.
I believe the Confrontation Clause has been sunk if any out-of-court statement bearing an indicium of a probative likelihood can come in, no matter how damaging the statement may be or how great the need for the truth-discovering test of cross-examination. Cf. California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 161162, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1936 1937, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970). Our decisions from Pointer and Douglas to Bruton and Roberts require more that this meager inquiry. Nor is the lame 'indicia' approach necessary to avoid a rampaging Confrontation Clause that tramples all flexibility and innovation in a state's law of evidence. That specter is only a specter.
To decide this case I need not go beyond hitherto settled Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment law to consider generally what effect, if any, the Confrontation Clause has on the common-law hearsay rule and its exceptions, since no issue of such global dimension is presented. Cf. Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S., at 128 n. 3, 88 S.Ct., at 1623. The incriminatory extrajudicial statement of an alleged accomplice is so inherently prejudicial that it cannot be introduced unless there is an opportunity to cross-examine the declarant, whether or not his statement falls within a genuine exception to the hearsay rule.
The parties agree that this death sentence cannot be carried out. See n. 20, infra.
385 U.S. 953, 87 S.Ct. 336, 17 L.Ed.2d 231.
Evans v. Dutton, 440 F.2d 826, 827.
393 U.S. 1076, 89 S.Ct. 862, 21 L.Ed.2d 770. Since, as will appear, the Court of Appeals held that a Georgia statute relied upon by the State at the trial was unconstitutional as applied, there can be no doubt of the right of appeal to this Court. 28 U.S.C. 1254(2).
Ga.Code Ann. § 38306 (1954).
400 F.2d, at 829.
400 F.2d, at 830, 831.
Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S., at 407, 85 S.Ct., at 1069 1070. See also Salinger v. United States, 272 U.S. 542, 548, 47 S.Ct. 173, 175, 71 L.Ed. 398.
See 18 U.S.C. 3771. Fed.Rule Crim.Proc. 26 provides:
'In all trials the testimony of witnesses shall be taken orally in open court, unless otherwise provided by an act of Congress or by these rules. The admissibility of evidence and the competency and privileges of witnesses shall be governed, except when an act of Congress or these rules otherwise provide, by the principles of the common law as they may be interpreted by the courts of the United States in the light of reason and experience.' See Hawkins v. United States, 358 U.S. 74, 79 S.Ct. 136, 3 L.Ed.2d 125.
We are advised that at the time of Evans' trial Georgia did not recognize conspiracy as a separate substantive criminal offense.
The Georgia rule is hardly unique. See, e.g., Reed v. People, 156 Colo. 450, 402 P.2d 68; Dailey v. State, 233 Ala. 384, 171 So. 729; State v. Roberts, 95 Kan. 280, 147 P. 828. See also 2 F. Wharton, Criminal Evidence § 430 (12th ed. 1955):
'The acts and declarations of a conspirator are admissible against a co-conspirator when they are made during the pendency of the wrongful act, and this includes not only the perpetration of the offense but also its subsequent concealment. * * *
'The theory for the admission of such evidence is that persons who conspire to commit a crime, and who do commit a crime, are as much concerned, after the crime, with their freedom from apprehension, as they were concerned, before the crime, with its commission: the conspiracy to commit the crime devolves after the commission thereof into a conspiracy to avoid arrest and implication.'
The existence of such a hearsay exception in the evidence law of many States was recognized in Krulewitch, supra. 336 U.S., at 444, 69 S.Ct., at 718.
It has been suggested that the constitutional provision is based on a common-law principle that had its origin in a reaction to abuses at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh. F. Heller, The Sixth Amendment 104 (1951).
'Despite the superficial similarity between the evidentiary rule and the constitutional clause, the Court should not be eager to equate them. Present hearsay law does not merit a permanent niche in the Constitution; indeed, its ripeness for reform is a unifying theme of evidence literature. From Bentham to the authors of the Uniform Rules of Evidence, authorities have agreed that present hearsay law keeps reliable evidence from the courtroom. If Pointer has read into the Constitution a hearsay rule of unknown proportions, reformers must grapple not only with centuries of inertia but with a constitutional prohibition as well.' Id., at 1436. (Footnotes omitted.)
Of course Evans had the right to subpoena witnesses, including Williams, whose testimony might show that the statement had not been made. Counsel for Evans informed us at oral argument that he could have subpoenaed Williams but had concluded that this course would not be in the best interests of his client.
It was conceded at oral argument that the death penalty imposed in this case cannot be carried out, because the jury was qualified under standards violative of Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1170, 20 L.Ed.2d 776. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has already set aside, under Witherspoon, the death sentence imposed upon Venson Williams, Evans' alleged accomplice. See Williams v. Dutton, 400 F.2d 797, 804805.
See California v. Green, supra, at 179, 90 S.Ct. at 1946 (concurring opinion): historically, 'the Confrontation Clause was meant to constitutionalize a barrier against flagrant abuses, trial by anonymous accusers, and absentee witnesses.'
See id., 399 U.S. at 175179, especially 176 n. 8, 90 S.Ct. at 19431946, especially 1944 n. 8 (concurring opinion).
Reliance on the Due Process Clauses would also have the virtue of subjecting rules of evidence to constitutional scrutiny in civil and criminal trials alike. It is exceedingly rare for the common law to make admissibility of evidence turn on whether the proceeding is civil or criminal in nature. See 1 Wigmore, supra, § 4, at 1617. This feature of our jurisprudence is a further indication that the Confrontation Clause, which applies only to criminal prosecutions, was never intended as a constitutional standard for testing rules of evidence.
Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 25 L.Ed. 244 (1879); Mattox v. United States, 156 U.S. 237, 15 S.Ct. 337, 39 L.Ed. 409 (1895); Motes v. United States, 178 U.S. 458, 20 S.Ct. 993, 44 L.Ed. 1150 (1900); West v. Louisiana, 194 U.S. 258, 24 S.Ct. 650, 48 L.Ed. 965 (1904); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965); Barber v. Page, 390 U.S. 719, 88 S.Ct. 1318, 20 L.Ed.2d 255 (1968); California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970).
Quite apart from Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964), Georgia has long recognized the privilege. The Georgia Constitution of 1877, Art. I, § 1, VI, provided that: 'No person shall be compelled to give testimony tending in any manner to criminate himself,' and the same language appears in the present state constitution. Ga.Const. of 1945, Art. I, § 1, VI. The right had previously been recognized as a matter of common law, even in civil trials. See, e.g., Marshall v. Riley, 7 Ga. 367 (1849).
This same questionwhich presents a fundamental conflict between a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights and a witness' Fifth Amendment privilegemight have been present here had the State called Williams to testify. Under a view that would make availability of a declarant the only concern of confrontation, see California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 172189, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1942 1951, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring), the State's right or duty to compel a codefendant's testimony, by timing of trials and use of testimonial immunity, would seemingly have to be decided. See Comment, Exercise of the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination by Witnesses and Codefendants: The Effect Upon the Accused, 33 U.Chi.L.Rev. 151, 165 (1965).
Cf. Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 4, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 1246, 16 L.Ed.2d 314 (1966).
After considering Shaw's testimony and other evidence submitted at the trial, the Court of Appeals concluded that Shaw's account of his conversation with Williams was notable for 'its basic incredibility.' 400 F.2d 826, 828 n. 4.
Constitutionalization of 'all common-law hearsay rules and their exceptions,' California v. Green, 399 U.S., at 174, 90 S.Ct., at 1943 (concurring opinion), would seem to be a prospect more frightening than real. Much of the complexity afflicting hearsay rules comes from the definition of hearsay as an out-of-court statement presented for the truth of the matter stateda definition nowhere adopted by this Court for confrontation purposes. Rather, the decisions, while looking to availability of a declarant, Barber v. Page, supra, recognize that 'cross-examination is included in the right of an accused in a criminal case to confront the witnesses against him,' Pointer v. Texas. 380 U.S., at 404, 85 S.Ct., at 1068, and that admission in the absence of cross-examination of certain types of suspect and highly damaging statements is one of the 'threats to a fair trial' against which 'the Confrontation Clause was directed,' Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S., at 136, 88 S.Ct., at 1628.
Evans was not charged with conspiracy nor could he have been under Georgia law. The 'conspiracy' element came in as part of the State's evidentiary law, part of which goes far beyond the traditional hearsay exception even as it exists with regard to the 'concealment phase' in some jurisdictions. Indeed, Williams' alleged statement itself negates the notion that Evans had authorized Williams to speak or had assumed the risk in order to achieve an unlawful aim through concert of effort. It is difficult to conceive how Williams could be part of a conspiracy to conceal the crime when all the alleged participants were in custody and he himself had already been arraigned. As this Court stated in Fiswick v. United States, 329 U.S. 211, 217, 67 S.Ct. 224, 227, 91 L.Ed. 196 (1946), an 'admission by one coconspirator after he has been apprehended is not in any sence a furtherance of the criminal enterprise. It is rather a frustration of it.' One lower court in Georgia has adopted essentially this reasoning in reversing a conviction where testimony similar to that objected to in this case was admitted. See Green v. State, 115 Ga.App. 685, 155 S.E.2d 655 (1967). But see n. 9, infra.
The Georgia rule involved here, which apparently makes admissible all pre-trial statements and admissions of an alleged accomplice or coconspirator, inevitably conflicts with this Court's decisions regarding the Confrontation Clause. See Darden v. State, 172 Ga. 590, 158 S.E. 414 (1931), and Mitchell v. State, 86 Ga.App. 292, 71 S.E.2d 756 (1952), where confessions of codefendants not on trial were held admissible. Indeed, the Georgia Supreme Court seems to have resolved this conflict in favor of the state rule by erroneously concluding that this Court's decisions are based on the federal hearsay rule concerning 'a confession by one of the co-conspirators after he has been apprehended.' Pinion v. State, 225 Ga. 36, 37, 165 S.E.2d 708, 709 710 (1969). See also Park v. State, 225 Ga. 618, 170 S.E.2d 687 (1969), petition for cert. filed, November 4, 1969, No. 57, O.T. 1970 (renumbered).
The trial judge's instructions left no doubt that the statement attributed to Williams could provide the necessary corroboration. See Trial Record 412413. Indeed, the prejudicial impact of Shaw's testimony is graphically revealed simply by juxtaposing two quotations. First, there is characterization in Mr. Justice STEWART's opinion of Shaw's testimony, a characterization that I find fair albeit studiedly mild: '(T)he jury was being invited to infer that Williams had implicitly identified Evans as the perpetrator of the murder. * * *' (Emphasis added.) Second, there is the trial judge's charge on corroboration of accomplice testimony: 'Slight evidence from an extraneous source identifying the accused as a participator in the criminal act will be sufficient corroboration of an accomplice to support a verdict.' (Emphasis added.) In the light of the charge and on consideration of the whole record of Evans' trial, it is impossible for me to believe 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 828, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967); Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 251, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 1727, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969).