Opinion ID: 1162168
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: coconspirators' admissions as declarations against interest

Text: (3) California is one of the few American jurisdictions to heed the virtually unanimous advice of commentators (see, e.g., 5 Wigmore, Evidence (Chadbourne rev. 1974) § 1477, pp. 358-360; McCormick, Evidence (1954) § 255, pp. 549-550; Morgan, The Rationale of Vicarious Admissions (1929) 42 Harv.L.Rev. 461, 481) and code drafters (see Fed. Rules of Evid., rule 804(b)(4); National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Uniform Rules of Evidence (Pamphlet ed. 1953) rule 63(10); American Law Institute, Model Code of Evid. (1942) rule 509) by recognizing evidence of declarations against penal interest as an exception to the hearsay rule. (Evid. Code, § 1230; People v. Spriggs (1964) 60 Cal.2d 868, 875 [36 Cal. Rptr. 841, 389 P.2d 377].) [14] Moreover, under California law the declarant's assertion of the privilege against self-incrimination satisfies the unavailability requirement of the against-interest exception ( People v. Spriggs, supra, 60 Cal.2d at p. 875, fn. 3). The question thus arises whether the evidence of the respective declarations of Leach and Lorraine Kramer, which were indisputably adverse to their respective personal penal interests, was ipso facto reciprocally admissible against Lorraine Kramer and Leach notwithstanding the inapplicability of the coconspirator exception. Writing in 1928, Professor Morgan called for the admissibility of evidence of vicarious admissions to be evaluated in terms of their disserving nature as regards the interests of the declarants, and uncritically assumed that this would hasten the accomplishment of the end for which the courts appear to be striving in the conspiracy cases, for even where a conspirator's utterances are without the scope of his authority as a representative of his fellows, they are usually against his penal interest. ( Morgan, supra, 42 Harv.L.Rev. at p. 481.) Professor Morgan's handiwork, the Model Code of Evidence, was only slightly more reserved in its readiness to admit hearsay evidence of declarations incriminating defendants as well as declarants. The Model Code included declarations against penal interest within the against-interest exception and went on to declare that evidence of so much of a hearsay declaration is admissible as consists of a declaration against interest and such additional parts thereof, including matter incorporated by reference, as the judge finds to be so closely connected with the declaration against interest as to be equally trustworthy. (Model Code of Evid., supra, rule 509(2), p. 255; see also id., com., at p. 257.) Professor Wigmore's position was essentially the same as the Model Code's. (See 5 Wigmore, supra, § 1465, p. 341.) Scholarly assessment of collateral assertions within declarations against penal interest has grown more searching as the admissibility of evidence of such statements has gained currency in the case law. The modern view seems first to have been enunciated in a comprehensive article on declarations against interest which concluded from a review of civil decisions that [j]udicial explanation of the admissibility of collateral statements [was] practically nonexistent. (Jefferson, Declarations Against Interest: An Exception to the Hearsay Rule (1944) 58 Harv.L.Rev. 1, 59.) This article attacked the expressions of Professors Wigmore and Morgan that declarations against interest bespeak the declarants' trustworthy frames of mind, and suggested that evidence of any portions of declarations against interest  especially declarations against penal interest  not actually disserving to the declarant should be inadmissible. [15] The same conclusion has been reached by more recent analyses specifically concerned with the possible functional equivalency of declarations against penal interest and declarations of coconspirators as exceptions to the hearsay rule. (See Davenport, The Confrontation Clause and the Co-Conspirator Exception in Criminal Prosecutions: A Functional Analysis (1972) 85 Harv.L.Rev. 1378, 1396-1398; Note, Preserving the Right to Confrontation  A New Approach to Hearsay Evidence in Criminal Trials (1965) 113 U.Pa.L.Rev. 741, 755-756; Comment, The Hearsay Exception for Co-Conspirators' Declarations (1958) 25 U.Chi.L.Rev. 530, 540.) [16] The criticism of the Model Code's approach to collateral assertions within declarations against interest appears to have had an effect on the draftsmen of subsequent codes of evidence. California's own Evidence Code is silent on the subject both in text (see ante, fn. 14) and comments, in keeping with rule 63(10) of the Uniform Rules of Evidence and rule 804(b)(4) of the Federal Rules of Evidence. (But see the ambiguous advisory committee's note to rule 804(b)(4), Fed. Rules of Evid. [reprinted in 5 Wigmore, supra, § 1477, p. 361, fn. 7].) We agree with the cogent comment that [a]lthough it seems reasonable that no man would state a fact which might cause him to suffer financial loss or imprisonment, it is precisely the purpose of the Constitution  and, we might add, the hearsay rule  to protect defendants from statements of unreasonable men if there is to be no opportunity for cross-examination. (Note, supra, 113 U.Pa.L.Rev. at p. 753.) To paraphrase another commentator, it is no victory for common sense to make a belief that unreasonable men are notorious for their veracity the basis for law. (See Levie, supra, 52 Mich.L.Rev. at p. 1166.) In the absence of any legislative declaration to the contrary, we construe the exception to the hearsay rule relating to evidence of declarations against interest set forth in section 1230 of the Evidence Code to be inapplicable to evidence of any statement or portion of a statement not itself specifically disserving to the interests of the declarant. [17] There being no other arguable avenue of admissibility for evidence of the hearsay declarations of Leach and Lorraine Kramer against other than the respective declarant, it follows that the admission of evidence of these declarations at the joint trial of defendants Leach and Lorraine Kramer was erroneous.