Opinion ID: 1401794
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: admission of terry's statement

Text: On March 24, 1995, [1] Terry gave a statement to police in which he maintained he had gone to victim's house and had consensual sex with her. [2] According to Terry, the victim became angered when he started to leave and grabbed him by the hair. He lost his temper and started hitting her with something. He couldn't recall the object but believed victim may have brought it with her from the bedroom. [3] He hit her several times then left. At the outset of trial, Terry moved to suppress this statement, contending it was involuntarily given. The trial judge conducted a Jackson v. Denno [4] hearing and ruled the statement was admissible. Terry elected not to testify at trial. When the state decided not to introduce the statement during the guilt or innocence phase of trial, [5] Terry contended he should be permitted to introduce it as a statement against his penal interest. The court ruled Terry could not introduce the statement. Terry contends he should have been permitted to introduce his confession as a statement against penal interest under Rule 804(b)(3), S.C. Rules of Evidence (SCRE), because he was unavailable [6] as a witness by virtue of his exercise of his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination. We disagree. Rule 804(b)(3) provides: (3) Statement Against Interest. A statement which was at the time of its making so far contrary to the declarant's pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far tended to subject the declarant to civil or criminal liability, or to render invalid a claim by the declarant against another, that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. A statement tending to expose the declarant to criminal liability and offered to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement, (emphasis supplied) Initially, Terry's purpose in offering the statement was in an attempt to provide the jury with some evidence tending to reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter. Accordingly, as he intended to offer the statement to exculpate himself, it was not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate[d] [its] trustworthiness. We find no such corroborating circumstances. [7] See State v. Doctor, 306 S.C. 527, 413 S.E.2d 36 (1992) (testimony of three witnesses corroborated out of court confessions of declarants). Accordingly, the trial court properly declined to admit the statement. In any event, we concur with the trial court's ruling that Terry could not use his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination as both a sword and a shield. Several courts have been faced with the issue of whether a defendant who has procured his own unavailability by invoking his protection against self-incrimination is unavailable as a witness for purposes of Rule 804(b)(1) (former testimony). In U.S. v. Kimball, 15 F.3d 54 (1994), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held a defendant who creates his own unavailability by invoking his fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination is not unavailable, stating, [w]hile sensitive to the importance of not discouraging or prejudicing a defendant who invokes the fifth amendment, we cannot accept the view proposed by Kimball. A defendant seeking to testify and make exculpatory statements must face cross-examination. That is a basic rule of our adversary system. To hold otherwise would permit the criminally-accused to set out all the facts which fall in his favor without laying himself open to cross-examination. Castro v. State of Texas, 914 S.W.2d 159, 163 (Tex.Ct.App.1995). Accord Dennis v. State of Texas, 961 S.W.2d 245 (Tex.Ct.App. 1997) (testimony's sponsor may not make himself unavailable by invoking fifth amendment privilege and then benefit from that unavailability). While the above-cited cases involve the former testimony exception to the hearsay rule, we find the same policy considerations apply here. Accordingly, we hold the circuit court properly refused to allow Terry to introduce the statement. Terry next asserts that, even if the trial court properly excluded his statement to police, he should have been permitted to elicit the fact that he had given a statement in order to demonstrate that he had cooperated with police. He contends the jury was left with the erroneous impression [he] stood silent in the face of an accusation that he committed murder. We disagree. Initially, defense counsel told the jury Terry had given a confession. Accordingly, his claim that the jury had the erroneous impression he had not cooperated with police is simply untenable. In any event, the fact that Terry gave police a statement was simply irrelevant to any issue at trial. Admission of the fact that Terry cooperated with police, without giving the substance of the statement, would, in our opinion have been confusing and misleading to the jury. Accord, People v. Harvey, 208 Cal.Rptr. 910, 925, 163 Cal.App.3d 90, 115 (1985) (as with absence of flight, evidence of a defendant's cooperation with authorities may not necessarily indicate innocence and is therefore properly excluded in light of possibility of confusing the jury). Accordingly, we find it was properly excluded. Moreover, given the fact that Agent Frier testified Terry was cooperative in all his dealing with police, and defense counsel reiterated this fact to the jury in closing, we discern neither error nor prejudice in exclusion of this evidence.