Opinion ID: 4693066
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Hearsay Statements

Text: As Lao’s case headed to trial, the Government moved the court to bar the admission of Chang’s out-of-court statements in which she attempted to bear all of the culpability for the crime, thus exculpating Lao. The statement Lao wished to introduce came from Chang’s police interview at the Sheriff’s office shortly after her arrest. After being advised of her Miranda rights, Chang allegedly told the interviewing officer that all of the “stuff” was hers. R. 21-1. Oddly, however, she could not describe the contents of the safe and when any drugs were placed into it. Id.; R. 55 at 5. She also allegedly stated: “I don’t know whatever you just found in the car is mine. Everything you found in the car is mine. He had nothing to do with it,” although, as we will discuss in a moment, these statements lack citation to record evidence. Lao wished to introduce these statements as evidence that the drugs and weapons were not his. The district court prohibited Lao from introducing these statements, concluding that the statements were not against Chang’s penal interest and lacked sufficient indicia of trustworthiness. R. 110 at 220–21. To overturn the district court’s ruling on the admissibility of this hearsay statement, we would have to conclude that the district court abused its discretion. Gunville v. Walker, 583 F.3d 979, 985 (7th Cir. 2009). The district court, however, was in a much better position to observe the proceedings and determine the impact of Chang’s statements as a whole, and therefore, we will defer to the district court’s determination unless it strikes us as fundamentally incorrect. United States v. Ferrell, 816 F.3d 433, 438 (7th Cir. 2015). This is particularly so in this 16 Nos. 19-3500 & 20-1111 case where the district court presided over a somewhat unusual hearing in which Chang initially declared that she would testify, then changed her mind and opted to invoke her Fifth Amendment right not to testify, but in the process of doing so, engaged in a colloquy with the court about what her testimony might be. See R. 109 at 179–83. The statement certainly meets the definition of hearsay: Lao wished to offer the out-of-court statements as true—to prove that Chang, not Lao, owned and controlled the drugs. Lao asserted that this statement fell within the “unavailable declarant” exception to the hearsay rule which allows the admission of hearsay evidence where (1) the declarant is unavailable; (2) the statement might expose the declarant to civil or criminal liability; and (3) it is supported by corroborating circumstances that clearly indicate its trustworthiness. See Fed. R. Evid. 804; Ferrell, 816 F.3d at 439. As the one seeking admission, Lao had the burden of demonstrating the satisfaction of each of these elements. United States v. Jackson, 540 F.3d 578, 588 (7th Cir. 2008). Once Chang invoked her Fifth Amendment rights, she became an unavailable witness. The district court, however, concluded that the statements by Chang that all of the drugs were hers, both lacked corroborating circumstances of trustworthiness and were not against her interest. The court stated, “my ruling was both that it wasn’t really against her interest to say that the drugs are not his. It would be against her interest certainly to say ‘they’re mine,’ but they could be both.” R. 109 at 221. But in fact, according to the government, when she was interviewed at the station she did indeed say, “the drugs are mine,” and such a statement would, in fact, be against her penal interest at the time she made it. Nos. 19-3500 & 20-1111 17 Consequently, the district court erred by stating that the testimony Lao wished to present was not against Chang’s penal interest. The district court was correct, however, that the statements lacked sufficient indicia of trustworthiness. This alone was sufficient reason for the district court to prohibit Lao from introducing them at trial. See Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3)(B); Ferrell, 816 F.3d at 439. Before we begin discussing the substantive lack of trustworthiness, we should address whether the statements are in the record at all. Both parties refer to the following statement that Chang allegedly made during her interrogation at the Sheriff’s office: “I don’t know whatever you just found in the car is mine. Everything you found in the car is mine. He had nothing to do with it.” The citations to this statement in the briefs are either missing or point to documents that eventually point to the Video of the Lola Chang Custodial Interview, which the government concedes is not in the record. See Government’s Brief at 11, n.4. Although no party disputes the accuracy of Chang’s statements or that they occurred, the fact that this court does not have any record citation for these statements, and no ability to assess their trustworthiness in context is one reason to question the reliability of the statements from the start. The district court had other reasons to question the trustworthiness of the statements. The court reasoned that given the officer’s initial concern about potential domestic abuse when he encountered the bickering couple, and the fact that Lao and Chang were “culturally” married, the court had reason to believe that Chang’s statement might be the result of either coercion or affection. We agree with the district court’s 18 Nos. 19-3500 & 20-1111 assessment that this significantly decreased any confidence in the reliability of the statement. Finally, although not explicitly articulated by the district court, Chang’s statements lacked trustworthiness in other ways. When stopped on the side of the road, she denied any knowledge or ownership of the gun safe or its contents, despite having been concealing it under her shirt. Then, shortly after, at the Sheriff’s office, she told Sergeant Tappen that “all of the stuff was hers.” R. 21-1. And then later, during a motion in limine during Lao’s trial, she took responsibility for the drugs in the car, but not the weapons. Her statements were also contradicted by videos taken from Lao’s cell phone in which he holds up a methamphetamine rock which looks just like the uniquely shaped rock recovered from the safe and describes how he has just purchased it from “Lola.” R. 109 at 139–42. Given the conflicting evidence, the district court clearly did not abuse its discretion in finding that the statements lacked the necessary indicia of trustworthiness. Because the court did not err in its hearsay ruling and because the stop did not violate the defendants’ Fourth Amendment rights, the opinion of the district court is AFFIRMED.