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

Heading: CRE 804(b)(3)'s Three Pronged Test Pursuant to Newton

Text: Having determined that Rodarte's statement is inculpatory as to Bernal, Newton compels the following analysis and conclusion. First, Rodarte was unavailable, as required. Second, the statement tended to subject Rodarte to criminal liability. Finally, because the statement is inferentially inculpatory as to Bernal, the People must show by a preponderance of evidence that the corroborating circumstances surrounding the making of the statement, not including other independent evidence, satisfy the Confrontation Clause's requirement of trustworthiness and reliability. Although Rodarte's statement satisfies the first two prongs of 804(b)(3), we find that the third 804(b)(3) prong of corroborating circumstances, as interpreted by Newton, was not satisfied. The record reveals the following facts regarding the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement: Detective Grose of the Brighton Police Department interviewed Rodarte the day of his arrest, January 30, 1997, while he was in police custody at the Brighton police station. Over the course of several hours on that day, which was approximately six weeks after the robbery, Grose conducted several interviews with Rodarte. Between each interview, Rodarte was placed in a holding cell at the police station. Further, Grose testified that Rodarte was worried, particularly about what kind and how much evidence the police had against him, during the interviews. Under Newton, the where, when, to whom, and what prompted factors all indicate that the statement was untrustworthy. Newton, 966 P.2d at 575-76; see also Lilly, 527 U.S at 131, 119 S.Ct. 1887; Stevens, 29 P.3d at 313. Similarly, the factors articulated by the Tenth Circuit and cited with approval by Stevens lead to the conclusion that Rodarte's statement was not sufficiently trustworthy to satisfy 804(b)(3)'s corroborating circumstances requirement, which incorporates the requirements of the Confrontation Clause. A review of the interview transcripts, which amount to one continuous statement, reveals that the content of Rodarte's statement was contradictory in many places. In speaking about the car theft, Rodarte told Grose that he stole the car in order to sell it to four other men, whom he did not know. He further said that he did not know what the men were planning to do with the car. Later, however, he stated that he knew the men were going to do something illegal, perhaps even commit a robbery. Additionally, Rodarte's statement is peppered with statements such as I don't remember and I am not sure. Thus, the nature and character of the statement was contradictory, elusive, and inconsistent, none of which supports a finding that the statement is trustworthy. Further, the declarant's probable motivations for making the statement, as well as the circumstances under which the statement was made, also lead us to conclude that the statement is untrustworthy. Although he did provide a detailed account of the car theft as well as the four men who allegedly asked him to steal the car, the entirety of the statement makes it clear that Rodarte was meeting with Grose in an effort to protect himself from going to jail. At one point he tells Grose: I'm trying to help myself out dude. I swear to God. But I don't want to go down nowhere dude. I don't want to go down on nothing. Even Grose, a detective and witness for the prosecution, recognized the untrustworthiness of Rodarte's statement. At a motions hearing that addressed, among other issues, the admissibility of Rodarte's statement to Grose, Grose responded to the court's question of why Rodarte was upset during the interviews with the following explanation: Because he was caught in several lies, and he was being confused as to time, where he was at. And he was getting frustrated because I was going back over his statements and he was changing his statements, and he was confused. The motivation to mix falsehood with truth thus permeated Rodarte's statement and as a result we cannot conclude that his confession regarding the car theft, while denying participation in the robbery, contained the constitutionally required guarantees of trustworthiness. In contrast, we conclude that Rodarte's statement both attempted to shift blame for the robbery as well as sought to place himself in a light more favorable than Bernal by denying the greater of the two offenses, the robbery, while creating the inference that Bernal participated in that greater offense. Thus, the record compels us to conclude that the statement is inherently untrustworthy for purposes of the corroborating circumstances prong of 804(b)(3), which equates to a failure to satisfy the Confrontation Clause. Put another way, the presumption of untrustworthiness was not rebutted because it is not at all clear from the surrounding circumstances that the test of cross-examination would be of marginal utility. Lilly, 527 U.S. at 136, 119 S.Ct. 1887. In contrast, the nature of Rodarte's statement, coupled with the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement, indicate that cross-examination of Rodarte would have been invaluable in undermining the credibility of Rodarte and of his statement. The statement was thus erroneously admitted at Bernal's trial.