Opinion ID: 371030
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Bland's Prior Sworn Statement

Text: 32 Metz next asserts that the trial court's refusal to compel Bland's testimony made Bland unavailable, under Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(2). Therefore, Metz argues, the trial court should have admitted Bland's prior sworn statement taken before trial by the attorney for appellant Schiller. In that statement Bland professed never to have known or seen appellant Metz during the course of the conspiracy to which he had pled guilty. The trial judge refused to admit the statement as an admission against penal interest, a hearsay exception under Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(3). The trial court found that Bland's statement, taken in a nonadversarial setting, lacked the clear corroboration required by Rule 804(b)(3) to guarantee its trustworthiness. See United States v. Alvarez, 584 F.2d 694, 701 (5th Cir. 1978); United States v. Bagley, 537 F.2d 162, 168 (5th Cir. 1976), Cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1075, 97 S.Ct. 816, 50 L.Ed.2d 794 (1977). In his efforts to compel admission of Bland's statement, appellant Metz proffered as corroboration Bland's repeated reaffirmance of the statement. Metz also drew attention to the testimony of Metz's alibi witness, which placed Metz away from the townhouse on December 14. Additionally, appellant Metz stressed that the only agent claiming to have seen Metz at the townhouse changed a former representation that he had never seen him. Seeking to establish his absence from the townhouse, Metz argued that the agent's former testimony and the subsequent change corroborated Bland's statement implying Metz's absence. 33 Such proffers of corroboration do not convince us of clear error in the trial court's refusal to admit the statement under Rule 804(b)(3). See United States v. Bagley, 537 F.2d at 165. Moreover, having failed to meet the corroboration standards of one hearsay exception, the statement must also fail the equivalent trustworthiness standards of Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(5). We agree with the trial court that the same proffers could not establish such circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness as to mandate admission of Bland's statement under the residual hearsay exception. United States v. Alvarez, 584 F.2d at 702 n.10.