Opinion ID: 2543459
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Nature of Rodarte's Statement

Text: The specific statement at issue was made to Grose while Rodarte was in police custody: He [Rodarte] admitted to taking the car, but adamantly denied being involved in the robbery. This statement was made in the context of a much longer narrative given by Rodarte to Grose. A review of the record demonstrates that the evidence admitted at trial, when considered as a whole, leads to the unavoidable conclusion that Rodarte's statement inferentially inculpated Bernal because it implicates both the declarant and the defendant in criminal activity. Comment, supra, at 1190 n. 7. Before Grose testified at trial, the employees of the credit union, other eyewitnesses to the robbery, and a police officer who arrived at the crime scene immediately after the robbery all testified. Through this testimony, both Rodarte and Bernal were identified as the men who committed the robbery. After these eyewitnesses testified, the People called Tucker, the owner of the stolen car, Marshall, Tucker's girlfriend at the time of the crimes, and Audra Ramirez, Rodarte's girlfriend at the time of the crimes. These three witnesses provided testimony that established that Tucker's car had been stolen the night before the robbery and was the car used in the robbery. These witnesses also tended to establish that Bernal and Rodarte were together the night before the robbery. After these acquaintances of Bernal and Rodarte testified, the People called agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, who established that hair samples taken from the car used in the robbery matched those from Rodarte. Finally, the People called two detectives involved in the investigation of the robbery, one of whom was Grose. Grose testified about his interview with Rodarte, during which Rodarte made the statement at issue here: He [Rodarte] admitted to taking the car, but adamantly denied being involved in the robbery. Immediately after Grose testified as to Rodarte's statement, he testified about the statement Ramirez gave him. Grose's recounting of Ramirez's statement established several important facts inculpatory to Bernal. In particular, Grose's summary of Ramirez's statement put Bernal and Rodarte together the night before the robbery. The night before the robbery was also the night that Tucker's car, which was used in the robbery, was stolen. Grose also established that Ramirez told him that the night before the robbery, Rodarte and Bernal left the house together in one car, but returned separately in two cars. Rodarte's statement, coupled with Ramirez's statement, both as relayed through Grose, tended to prove that Bernal was involved in the planning and theft of the car, which in turn leads to the reasonable conclusion that he also planned and participated in the robbery the next day. Thus, the order of the testimony and the evidence that such testimony established created the links necessary to render Rodarte's statement inferentially inculpatory as to Bernal. Turning to a consideration of the specific content of Rodarte's statement, it implicates him in the criminal activity of the car theft and exculpates him as to the robbery. The statement does not expressly deny Bernal's involvement in the theft of the car or in the robbery. Further, Rodarte's admission to the theft of the car, his express denial of involvement in the robbery, and the other evidence at trial linking Rodarte to Bernal and both men to the theft of the car, the robbery, and to both crime scenes, created for the jury the reasonable inference that Bernal participated in the robbery. Importantly, Rodarte's adamant denial of participation in the robbery created the reasonable inference that Bernal may have been the principal in the robbery. We thus view Rodarte's statement, while facially inculpating himself as to the car theft, as attempting to shift the blame for the robbery to the only other individual implicated by the other evidence, namely Bernal. See, e.g., Williamson, 512 U.S. at 603, 114 S.Ct. 2431 (And when seen with other evidence, an accomplice's self-inculpatory statement can inculpate the defendant directly: `I was robbing the bank on Friday morning,' coupled with someone's testimony that the declarant and the defendant drove off together Friday morning, is evidence that the defendant also participated in the robbery.). Additionally, the fact that the prosecution offered the statement at Bernal's trial further supports our conclusion that the statement was inferentially inculpatory as to Bernal for purposes of an 804(b)(3) analysis. See, e.g., United States v. McCleskey, 228 F.3d 640, 644 (6th Cir.2000)(noting that when the government seeks to introduce a statement under 804(b)(3), it tends to inculpate the defendant by spreading or shifting onto him some, much, or all of the blame). Finally, in his closing argument, the prosecution made explicit the inculpatory connection between Rodarte's statement regarding the car and Bernal's alleged guilt: Once again, the last piece of evidence showing the guilt is the association. And it's the association that night when getting the car, and the next day in the bank. That's the association that we care about.