Opinion ID: 834908
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: cazares-mendez

Text: Defendant Cazares-Mendez relies on the statement against penal interest exception, OEC 804(3)(c), as modified by the requirements of due process. For convenience, we repeat the relevant portions of that rule: The following are not excluded by ORS 40.455 [OEC 802] if the declarant is unavailable as a witness:      (c) A statement which    at the time of its making    so far tended to subject the declarant to    criminal liability,    that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless the person believed 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. Defendant Cazares-Mendez asserts that the trustworthiness of the hearsay testimony that he proffered is clearly indicated by corroborating circumstances. We agree. In this case, the jury could find that Scherer confessed on four separate occasions to four different witnesses. All of the statements were identical at their core, in that Scherer had admitted to stabbing to death a female victim. (To Smith, Scherer admitted stabbing Valero in particular.) Those confessions were against Scherer's interest, in that they could expose her to criminal liability. Scherer was not under any pressure to confess, and she obtained no benefit from doing so. The statements were made shortly after the murder, and (with the exception of the statements to Smith) were spontaneous. Furthermore, several of the statements included additional, corroborating details about the crime: three of the witnesses reported Scherer as stating that she had stabbed the victim repeatedly (the victim was stabbed about 29 times); two witnesses reported Scherer as stating that she had attempted to make the murder appear to be a robbery or burglary, with one witness testifying that Scherer stated she had sent someone back to rob the place; and one witness testified that Scherer had described Valero as suffering a seizure during the attack, when Valero in fact had epilepsy. All those considerations were relevant to determining the trustworthiness of Scherer's hearsay statements. The state itself concedes as much. Yet the trial court in Cazares-Mendez seemingly failed to give weight to any of them, mentioning only one (the statement that Valero had had a seizure during the attack, when Valero had epilepsy). The trial court erred as a matter of law in failing to evaluate those considerations in determining whether the hearsay statements were trustworthy. [7] We conclude, as did the Court of Appeals, that those corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the hearsay statements offered by defendant Cazares-Mendez. [8] Accordingly, that aspect of OEC 804(3)(c) was met in this case. It is undisputed, however, that the hearsay statements at issue are not admissible under OEC 804(3)(c), because the declarant, Scherer, was available to testify. As did the Court of Appeals, we now turn to the question whether due process nevertheless required the trial court to admit the testimony. The key case in that regard is Chambers. Briefly, the facts of that case were as follows. The defendant was charged with having murdered a police officer. The defendant asserted that another man was the killer. Not only had the other suspect admitted to three friends in private conversations that he had killed the officer, but he had also signed a written confession, although he later repudiated it. 410 U.S. at 287-89, 93 S.Ct. 1038. The defendant called the other suspect to the stand and introduced the confession, but the state elicited from the suspect that he had repudiated the confession, and the trial court, based on state law, refused to allow the defendant to cross-examine the suspect as an adverse witness. Id. at 291-92, 93 S.Ct. 1038. The defendant also sought to introduce the testimony of the three witnesses to whom the suspect had confessed, but the trial court excluded the testimony as inadmissible hearsaystate law did not recognize a hearsay exception for statements against penal interest. Id. at 292-93, 299, 93 S.Ct. 1038. [9] The United States Supreme Court concluded that the defendant had been denied a trial in accord with traditional and fundamental standards of due process. Id. at 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038. Besides concluding that the trial court had erred in refusing to allow the defendant to cross-examine the other suspect, the Court also held that, under the circumstances, due process required the trial court to admit the hearsay testimony by the three witnesses. The Court explained that the testimony of the three witnesses was offered under circumstances that provided considerable assurance of their reliability. Id. at 300, 93 S.Ct. 1038. Specifically: First, each of [the other suspect's] confessions was made spontaneously to a close acquaintance shortly after the murder had occurred. Second, each one was corroborated by some other [independent] evidence in the case   . The sheer number of independent confessions provided additional corroboration for each. Third, whatever may be the parameters of the penal-interest rationale, each confession here was in a very real sense self-incriminatory and unquestionably against interest. [The other suspect] stood to benefit nothing by disclosing his role in the shooting to any of his three friends, and he must have been aware of the possibility that disclosure would lead to criminal prosecution.    Finally, if there was any question about the truthfulness of the extrajudicial statements, [the other suspect] was present in the courtroom and was under oath. He could have been cross-examined by the State, and his demeanor and responses weighed by the jury. Id. at 300-01, 93 S.Ct. 1038 (citations and footnotes omitted). Because the hearsay statements were trustworthy and were central to the defendant's' defense, the Court concluded, due process required that the testimony be admitted: Although perhaps no rule of evidence has been more respected or more frequently applied in jury trials than that applicable to the exclusion of hearsay, exceptions tailored to allow the introduction of evidence which in fact, is likely to be trustworthy have long existed. The testimony rejected by the trial court here bore persuasive assurances of trustworthiness, and thus was well within the basic rationale of the exception for declarations against interest. That testimony also was critical to [the defendant's] defense. In these circumstances, where constitutional rights directly affecting the ascertainment of guilt are implicated, the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically to defeat the ends of justice. Id. at 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038 (emphasis added). Chambers remains good law. The United States Supreme Court recently reaffirmed the holding of Chambers in Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319, 325-26, 126 S.Ct. 1727, 164 L.Ed.2d 503 (2006), where the Court unanimously concluded that the trial court erred in preventing a defendant from introducing hearsay testimony that another person had admitted committing the crime. Other courts have recently relied on Chambers to conclude that state laws restricting the introduction of trustworthy hearsay evidence violated due process, where the evidence was that another person had committed the crime. E.g., Lunbery v. Hornbeak, 605 F.3d 754, 760-62 (9th Cir.), cert. den., ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 798, 178 L.Ed.2d 545 (2010) (relying on Chambers, the court held that the petitioner was entitled to federal habeas corpus relief when the state trial court had excluded hearsay testimony that another person had admitted committing the murder at issue); Chia v. Cambra, 360 F.3d 997, 1003-08 (9th Cir.2004), cert. den., 544 U.S. 919, 125 S.Ct. 1637, 161 L.Ed.2d 476 (2005) (relying on Chambers, the court held that the petitioner was entitled to federal habeas corpus relief when the state trial court had excluded hearsay testimony that one of the murderers had exculpated petitioner while admitting his own guilt). We have already concluded that the corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the hearsay statements at issue here. We see no meaningful distinction between that standard and Chambers' requirement that the hearsay statements have persuasive assurances of trustworthiness. Id. at 302, 93 S.Ct. 1038. Nor does the state assert that any difference exists. The state contends, however, that due process is not violated here, because the unavailability requirement of OEC 804(3)(c) reflects a rational and reasonable policy preference for live testimony by the declarant, rather than hearsay testimony by witnesses. As the United States Supreme Court has explained, a criminal defendant's right to a meaningful opportunity to present a complete defense is violated by evidence rules that infring[e] upon a weighty interest of the accused and are arbitrary or disproportionate to the purposes they are designed to serve. Holmes, 547 U.S. at 324, 126 S.Ct. 1727 (alteration in original; internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (trial court erred when it prohibited criminal defendant from offering hearsay testimony that another person had confessed to the crime; the trial court had improperly relied on the strength of the prosecution's case, not the probative value of the defendant's evidence). Holmes cited Chambers as an example of such an arbitrary or disproportionate rule. 547 U.S. at 325-26, 126 S.Ct. 1727. The state contends that OEC 804(3)(c)'s requirement that the declarant be unavailable is not arbitrary or disproportionate; it instead reflects a sensible preference that the declarant, when available, should be called to the stand and directly examined in the presence of the jury, rather than permit a defendant to present less reliable hearsay testimony. Defendant Cazares-Mendez assertsand we agreethat, where the unavailability requirement is used, as here, to exclude otherwise trustworthy evidence that, if believed, shows that a person other than defendant committed the crime, that requirement is arbitrary and disproportionate to the purpose that the evidentiary rule is designed to serve. As defendant correctly points out, the unavailability of a declarant who has allegedly confessed to the crime would not make her hearsay testimony more reliable it would make it less reliable. If the hearsay declarant is available, as here, the declarant can take the stand and clarify or refute the confession that he or she allegedly made. If the declarant is unavailable, however, no such opportunity exists. Indeed, the unavailability of the declarant actually would help witnesses concoct falsified confessions by absent third parties, because they would know that the missing declarant will not be around to deny their claims. Accordingly, we conclude that the Due Process Clause, as interpreted in Chambers and similar cases, required the trial court to disregard the unavailability requirement of OEC 804(3)(c) and permit the testimony of Torres, Rivera, Callahan, and Smith. The Court of Appeals also concluded that the error was not harmless. 233 Or.App. at 337, 227 P.3d 172. The court noted that the hearsay testimony was central to defendant's claim that another person committed the crime, and it was sufficiently substantiated as trustworthy by corroborating circumstances. Id. Although the state presented substantial evidence of defendant's guilt, there was no forensic evidence directly linking defendant to the crime. Id. at 337-38, 227 P.3d 172. The state does not challenge the Court of Appeals' determination that, if the trial court erred, the error was prejudicial. We conclude that the trial court erred in Cazares-Mendez and that that error requires reversal. In determining whether corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement under OEC 804(3)(c), the trial court erred as a matter of law in failing to consider all the relevant circumstances. Moreover, while Scherer's availability to testify meant that the hearsay statements were not admissible under OEC 804(3)(c), due process nevertheless required that the hearsay testimony be admitted. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the case must be remanded for a new trial.