Opinion ID: 1060657
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Corroboration or Reliability

Text: The majority also concludes that because the victim was analogous to a party the victim's out-of-court statement was reliable because such testimony is quite similar to hearsay evidence which is currently admissible under Rule 803 (1.2)(A). This logic is circular and assumes reliability without examining the content of the statement. The defendant attempted to proffer hearsay evidence that the eleven-year-old victim had stated that she had previously engaged in sexual intercourse with an adolescent male. In examining the potential veracity or reliability of this statement, one must examine both the content of the statement and the context in which the statement was made. Moreover, one must also consider the age of the declarant in this case. Children and teenagers may be prone to fabricate or exaggerate both the status of their consensual sexual activity and their sexual prowess. Children may succumb to peer pressure or fabricate stories of sexual promiscuity to be viewed as cool or mature. The mere fact that the victim was a rape victim does not automatically render the victim's hearsay allegations of sexual promiscuity with an adolescent male reliable. The victim simply may have been attempting to impress a friend. The majority further asserts the hearsay statement was corroborated by the non-hearsay proof that a defense witness observed the victim kissing and fondling the adolescent male. This evidence is analogous to evidence that the rape shield rule was designed to prohibit. That the victim consented to kissing and fondling, if true, would not indicate that the victim consented to or did have sexual intercourse with either the adolescent male or the defendant. This evidence corroborates nothing except the fact that the victim had an adolescent boyfriend. In both Chambers and Green , the Court went through numerous factors that supported persuasive assurance of trustworthiness concerning the hearsay statements. In both cases the declarants had confessed to committing the criminal acts for which the defendants were being tried. The declarant's statements were admissible against the declarants. In Green , the declarant's statement was sufficiently reliable to use against the declarant and to impose a sentence of death. Moreover, considerable direct evidence corroborated the declarants' confessions in Chambers and Green whereas the corroborating evidence in the case now before us is at best circumstantial in nature and is irrelevant to the crime charged. [4]