Opinion ID: 149281
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Williams’ Affidavit

Text: The crux of Beckett’s claims is that Williams’ affidavit demonstrates that Forrester and Anderson conspired to frame Beckett for murder and coerced Williams into testifying. Williams testified extensively at trial regarding Beckett’s alleged role in the murder; following the trial, Williams recanted in September of 1997 by sending a letter and an affidavit to the Lucas County Prosecutor. It is this affidavit that Beckett now claims that the district court erroneously disbelieved or ignored. In the affidavit, Williams states: 1. I was threatened by Detective Steve Forester that if I refused to testify against Dale Beckett that he would implicate me in the murder; 2. I had no prior knowledge of the involvement of Dale Beckett in the murder he now stands convicted of; 3. I was informed by the detective and prosecutor on what to testify to during the Grand Jury and Jury Trial concerning investigative facts in the murder case implicating Dale Beckett by being rehurst [sic] and going over investigative facts in the case; - 14 - No. 09-3719 Dale Beckett v. Jack Ford et al. 4. I was promised by Prosecuting Attorney, Chris Anderson that if I falsely implicate Dale Beckett in the murder that I would be granted a release from prison; (R. 103 Attach. 6.) Williams, who is now dead, later refused to testify at an evidentiary hearing, and cited his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Much of Williams’ affidavit is clearly inadmissable hearsay. Beckett offers Williams’ affidavit to prove the matter asserted – that Forrester and Anderson coerced and bribed Williams to falsely accuse Beckett. As Williams is dead (and so cannot testify at trial or a hearing), and as the affidavit is the only evidence Beckett can offer regarding Williams’ contentions, the information in Williams’ affidavit will necessarily remain hearsay. Hearsay is not admissible unless it falls within one of the exemptions or exceptions defined by the Federal Rules of Evidence. FED . R. EVID . 802. Beckett argues that Williams’ hearsay testimony is admissible as a statement against interest, which is admissible where the declarant is unavailable to testify. See FED . R. EVID . 804(b). “Unavailablity of the witness” includes situations where the declarant “is unable to be present or to testify at the hearing because of death . . . .” FED . R. EVID . 804(a)(4). A statement against interest includes any statement which, at the time of its making, “so far tended to subject the declarant to civil or criminal liability . . . that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true.” FED . R. EVID . 804(b)(3). Here, Williams’ affidavit in part certainly seems to expose Williams to criminal liability for perjury. That one part of an affidavit is admissible under the statement-against-interest exception does not, however, mean that the entire affidavit is admissible. As the Supreme Court has observed, “[t]he fact that a statement is self-inculpatory does make it more reliable; but the fact that a statement - 15 - No. 09-3719 Dale Beckett v. Jack Ford et al. is collateral to a self-inculpatory statement says nothing at all about the collateral statement's reliability.” Williamson v. U.S., 512 U.S. 594, 600 (1994). The Court concluded that Rule 804(b)(3) “does not allow admission of non-self-inculpatory statements, even if they are made within a broader narrative that is generally self-inculpatory. The district court may not just assume . . . that a statement is self-inculpatory because it is part of a fuller confession, and this is especially true when the statement implicates someone else.” Id. at 600-01. “[W]hen ruling upon a narrative’s admissibility under this rule, a court must break it down and determine the separate admissibility of each ‘single declaration or remark.’” U.S. v. Canan, 48 F.3d 954, 959 (6th Cir. 1995) (quoting Williamson, 512 U.S. at 604). This means that a court, “when determining the admissibility of a narrative, must examine it sentence by sentence,” id. at 960, in order to determine what sentences are self-inculpatory and what sentences are collateral. Of the four declarations Williams made in his affidavit, only the second – that he “had no prior knowledge of the involvement of Dale Beckett in the murder he now stands convicted of” – is in any way self-inculpatory. While Williams’ second statement on its face does not admit wrongdoing, because Williams testified at Beckett’s murder trial implicating Beckett in the murder, in context it is clear that this statement subjects Williams to charges of perjury and a civil suit from Beckett. (In contrast, Williams’ first, third, and fourth declarations are not self-inculpatory, and are therefore inadmissible: Williams did not incur any criminal or civil liability by stating that he was threatened by Forrester, that Forrester and Anderson coached his testimony, or that Anderson promised that he would be released from prison in exchange for testifying falsely.) This means that only Williams’ second statement could conceivably be used by Beckett at trial. - 16 - No. 09-3719 Dale Beckett v. Jack Ford et al. Given that these statements in Williams’ affidavit constitute inadmissible hearsay, the next question is whether Beckett can show that he “can make good on the promise of the pleadings by laying out enough evidence that will be admissible at trial to demonstrate that a genuine issue on a material fact exists, and that a trial is necessary.” Alexander, 576 F.3d at 558. Here, however, Beckett is depending entirely upon Williams’ affidavit to prove Williams’ allegations. Beckett, in other words, has produced no admissible evidence demonstrating that Anderson, Forrester, or indeed anyone else bribed, coerced, or threatened Williams into testifying falsely. As any inadmissible hearsay offered in opposition to a motion for summary judgment “must be disregarded,” Alpert, 481 F.3d at 409, we find that the district court, in ruling on the motions for summary judgment, was required to disregard all statements in Williams’ affidavit other than Williams’ claim that he “had no prior knowledge of the involvement of Dale Beckett in the murder he now stands convicted of.”