Opinion ID: 2459991
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Michael Salazar's Statement

Text: In the first of his three preserved points on appeal, Hutchison alleges that the trial court should have permitted police investigator Mark Aleshire to read to the jury the portion of his police report in which he recorded Michael Salazar's confession to shooting the Yates brothers in the garage. Following his arrest, Salazar told Aleshire that he had shot Ronald Yates in the back and Brian Yates in the chest and stomach with the .25 caliber gun. He also told Aleshire that Hutchison shot the brothers in the head with the .22 caliber gun. Aleshire incorporated these statements, among others, in a police report he prepared. Counsel for Hutchison asked the trial court for permission to have Aleshire read Salazar's confession from the police report. The prosecutor objected on hearsay grounds. Alternatively, the prosecutor contended that if the court admitted Salazar's confession, then it should admit Salazar's entire statement, including Salazar's claim that Hutchison fired the gun that killed the brothers. The trial court ultimately determined that the proposed evidence was hearsay and could not come in under the statements against penal interest exception. Hutchison argues that the trial court should have overruled the state's hearsay objection to this evidence and admitted the disputed portions of Salazar's statement as statements against penal interest. The exclusion of Salazar's confession was not error. Hearsay statements, or out-of-court statements used to prove the truth of the matter asserted, are generally inadmissible. State v. Sutherland, 939 S.W.2d 373, 376 (Mo. banc 1997), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 118 S.Ct. 186, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (1997). Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973), found a constitutionally-based hearsay exception in the due process clause. This exception applies to out-of-court statements that both exonerate the accused and are originally made and subsequently offered at trial under circumstances providing considerable assurance of their reliability. Id. at 300, 93 S.Ct. at 1048. The Supreme Court recognized three such circumstances of reliability: 1) each confession is in a very real sense self-incriminatory and unquestionably against interest; 2) each statement was spontaneously made to a close acquaintance shortly after the murder occurred; and 3) the statements are corroborated by other evidence in the case. Id. at 300-1, 93 S.Ct. at 1048-1049; State v. Blankenship, 830 S.W.2d 1, 7 (Mo. banc 1992). The hearsay statement here fails to meet either of the requirements for this hearsay exception. It neither exonerates Hutchison nor was made under circumstances that provide considerable assurance of its reliability. First, Michael Salazar's confession to shooting the Yates brothers does not exonerate Hutchison. Although the statement certainly confirms that Salazar initially shot each of the victims and might have had a motive to make sure they died, the statement is not inconsistent with the possibility that Hutchison killed them. In fact, the entirety of the statement confirms Hutchison's role in the murders. A confession is not exonerating when it is consistent with a showing of guilt. State v. Turner, 623 S.W.2d 4, 9 (Mo. banc 1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 931, 102 S.Ct. 1982, 72 L.Ed.2d 448 (1982). Second, the statement was not made under circumstances that would establish its reliability. The confession was made to a police officer during interrogation several days after the murder, not spontaneously ... to a close acquaintance shortly after the murder occurred. See State v. Skillicorn, 944 S.W.2d 877, 885 (Mo. banc 1997). In addition, Salazar's confession was not in a real sense self incriminatory and unquestionably against interest. While admitting that he first shot the Yates brothers, Salazar pointed to Hutchison as the person who killed them. As such, the statement was partially exonerating and in Salazar's interest. Finally, even if the confession was admissible under the penal interest exception, the court's failure to admit it was not prejudicial. One of the state's own witnesses, Freddie Lopez, testified that Salazar told him that he shot the brothers in Lopez's garage. This evidence was uncontroverted. The statements Hutchison complains of are duplicative of those already in evidence. State v. Mahurin, 799 S.W.2d 840, 846 (Mo. banc 1990), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 825, 112 S.Ct. 90, 116 L.Ed.2d 62 (1991). Point denied.