Opinion ID: 1151766
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Feagle's Prior Inconsistent Statement

Text: Ellis argues that it was error for the trial court to permit into evidence Feagle's prior statement. At first blush the statement appears to have constituted hearsay as defined in the Evidence Code, which declares that hearsay is a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. § 90.801(1)(c), Fla. Stat. (1989). The State raises alternative arguments on this point, the first being that Feagle's statement was properly admitted for purposes of impeachment under section 90.608, Florida Statutes (1989). [3] We cannot accept this argument, foremost because the State and the trial court themselves stated at trial that the prior statement was being admitted not to impeach but as substantive evidence. By definition, substantive evidence is that which tends to prove the truth of the matter asserted. [4] Even if the State and trial court had not made these remarks, however, we would be forced to the same conclusion by the substance of what the State did. This was not simply an attack on Feagle's credibility. Rather, the State made an active effort to persuade the jury both to believe in the truthfulness of the out-of-court statements and to reject Feagle's in-court statements. In closing arguments the State even reiterated material from Feagle's out-of-court statement and emphasized that it was truthful and could be relied upon as evidence of Ellis' guilt. [5] Accordingly, the State was using the prior statement almost entirely for its substantive effect on the fact finder. At least to this extent, the hearsay rule must remain applicable. Feagle's earlier statement was hearsay and therefore inadmissible in the absence of any other exception to or exclusion from the hearsay rule. Alternatively, the State argues that Feagle's prior statement was excluded from the category of hearsay by operation of paragraph (a) of subsection 90.801(2), Florida Statutes (1989). The statute provides: A statement is not hearsay if the declarant testifies at the trial or hearing and is subject to cross-examination concerning the statement and the statement is: (a) Inconsistent with his testimony and was given under oath subject to the penalty of perjury at a trial, hearing, or other proceeding or in a deposition... . Id. For purposes of the statute, the declarant is the person who makes a statement, § 90.801(1)(b), Fla. Stat. (1989); and a statement for present purposes is an oral or written assertion. § 90.801(1)(a)1., Fla. Stat. (1989). Obviously, Feagle testified at trial, was subject to cross examination, and gave testimony inconsistent with an earlier statement. As a result of the inconsistency, Feagle subsequently has been prosecuted for perjury by inconsistent statements. See State v. Feagle, 604 So.2d 824 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991); State v. Feagle, 600 So.2d 1236 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992). However, it is clear that the earlier statement was not made at a trial, hearing, or deposition. Therefore, the only possible basis for the State's argument is that Feagle's prior statement was made in some other proceeding. In construing the meaning of this undefined term, we must begin by noting that the pertinent language was derived from the Federal Rules of Evidence. Thus, federal court decisions on the same question are persuasive in Florida. Moore v. State, 452 So.2d 559, 561-62 (Fla. 1984). We also note that our own courts already have developed a fairly substantial body of law on the subject as well. It is clear, for example, that the term other proceeding encompasses grand jury hearings. United States v. Distler, 671 F.2d 954 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 827, 102 S.Ct. 118, 70 L.Ed.2d 102 (1981); Moore. However, the courts have shown a marked unwillingness to include types of information-gathering activities less formal than a grand jury hearing or deposition. For example, the term other proceeding does not include police interrogations or statements obtained during police investigations, even if sworn, State v. Delgado-Santos, 497 So.2d 1199 (Fla. 1986), sworn statements made to defense counsel, Arner v. State, 459 So.2d 1136 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984), review denied, 471 So.2d 43 (Fla. 1985), interviews under oath by Internal Review Service officers, United States v. Day, 789 F.2d 1217 (6th Cir.1986), or sworn statements made to obtain a warrant. Kirkland v. State, 509 So.2d 1105 (Fla. 1987). In Delgado-Santos and again in State v. Smith, 573 So.2d 306 (Fla. 1990), this Court conducted an extensive analysis of the history and purpose of paragraph (a) of subsection 90.801(2), Florida Statutes. We noted that the rule was intended to be a very narrow provision that cannot be construed liberally, but must be construed strictly. Id. at 314. To qualify under the rule, the statement must be made during a proceeding that is no less formal than a deposition and no more so than a hearing. Id. (quoting Delgado-Santos v. State, 471 So.2d 74, 77 (Fla.App. 1985)). Moreover, an information-gathering process is not an other proceeding within the meaning of the rule unless it has a degree of formality, convention, structure, regularity, and replicability of the process in question. Id. at 314-15 (quoting Delgado-Santos, 471 So.2d at 77). Thus, in Smith we found error under subsection 90.801(2), paragraph (a), where the court admitted into evidence the sworn statement of a witness made to a prosecutor and deputy sheriff in the presence of a court reporter. We gave the following rationale: [The witness] was brought into a room where a deputy sheriff and a prosecutor were waiting with a court reporter to interrogate the seventeen-year-old about a homicide in which she had just been involved. No counsel was present to advise her or to protect [the defendant's] interests; no cross-examination was possible; and no judge was present or made available to lend an air of fairness or objectivity. This prosecutorial interrogation was neither regulated nor regularized, Delgado-Santos, 471 So.2d at 78; it contained none of the safeguards involved in an appearance before a grand jury and did not even remotely resemble that process, id.; nor did it have any quality of formality and convention which could arguably raise the interrogation to a dignity akin to that of a hearing or trial. Id. At bottom, prosecutorial interrogations such as the one here provide no degree of formality, convention, structure, regularity and replicability of the process that must be provided pursuant to the statute to allow any resulting statement to be used as substantive evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Id. at 77. Smith, 573 So.2d at 315-16. The facts of the present case are in no meaningful way distinguishable from those in Smith. Here, Feagle was summoned by subpoena to appear before the prosecuting attorney; he was put under oath; and he was required to testify before a court reporter in a nonadversarial setting under the control and direction of the prosecutor and no one else. Many questions put to him were of a highly leading nature that would not have been a proper method of direct examination had the State called Feagle as its witness at trial. A large number of Feagle's statements are merely yes or no replies to detailed leading questions put by the State. We might be inclined to view this error as harmless except for the peculiar facts of the case and the cumulative errors that occurred here (discussed more fully below). Most significantly, the prior statement of Feagle became a prominent feature of the trial. The prosecutor read at length from the statement and argued matters from it during closing argument, urging jurors to accept the prior inconsistent statement as truthful. For another, Feagle's prior statement was perhaps one of the strongest corroborations of Ellis' alleged involvement in the murder of Evans, even to the point of identifying the road along which Evans' body was found. Any confession is damning evidence; and the purported confession by Ellis described and later retracted by Feagle was not merely cumulative of other admissible evidence. To the contrary, it contained important details absent from the other evidence, and it tended to give substantial weight to the case against Ellis. [6] It is entirely possible that a reasonable juror could have had reasonable doubts about the Evans murder that were dispelled by Feagle's prior inconsistent statement; and a belief that Ellis was guilty of the Evans murder could only have bolstered a belief in Ellis' guilt as to the other offenses. See Crossley v. State, 596 So.2d 447 (Fla. 1992). Whenever improper evidence becomes so prominent a feature of the trial, a court cannot find that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In sum, there is a strong likelihood here that the improper admission of Feagle's prior statement affected the outcome of the proceeding. See State v. DiGuilio, 491 So.2d 1129 (Fla. 1986). On this basis alone we must reverse.