Opinion ID: 2543459
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of the Law to Rodarte's Statement

Text: Appellate review of a possible Confrontation Clause violation is de novo. Lilly, 527 U.S. at 137, 119 S.Ct. 1887. Here, the trial court held a hearing on the admissibility of Rodarte's statement. Grose testified regarding the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement, including such details as the layout of the police station, the procurement of Rodarte's Miranda waiver, the tone of the interviews, and Rodarte's demeanor during the interviews. In addition, the trial court admitted into evidence the transcripts of the interviews. Accordingly, we conclude that the record is adequate for a de novo review.
The specific statement at issue was made to Grose while Rodarte was in police custody: He [Rodarte] admitted to taking the car, but adamantly denied being involved in the robbery. This statement was made in the context of a much longer narrative given by Rodarte to Grose. A review of the record demonstrates that the evidence admitted at trial, when considered as a whole, leads to the unavoidable conclusion that Rodarte's statement inferentially inculpated Bernal because it implicates both the declarant and the defendant in criminal activity. Comment, supra, at 1190 n. 7. Before Grose testified at trial, the employees of the credit union, other eyewitnesses to the robbery, and a police officer who arrived at the crime scene immediately after the robbery all testified. Through this testimony, both Rodarte and Bernal were identified as the men who committed the robbery. After these eyewitnesses testified, the People called Tucker, the owner of the stolen car, Marshall, Tucker's girlfriend at the time of the crimes, and Audra Ramirez, Rodarte's girlfriend at the time of the crimes. These three witnesses provided testimony that established that Tucker's car had been stolen the night before the robbery and was the car used in the robbery. These witnesses also tended to establish that Bernal and Rodarte were together the night before the robbery. After these acquaintances of Bernal and Rodarte testified, the People called agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, who established that hair samples taken from the car used in the robbery matched those from Rodarte. Finally, the People called two detectives involved in the investigation of the robbery, one of whom was Grose. Grose testified about his interview with Rodarte, during which Rodarte made the statement at issue here: He [Rodarte] admitted to taking the car, but adamantly denied being involved in the robbery. Immediately after Grose testified as to Rodarte's statement, he testified about the statement Ramirez gave him. Grose's recounting of Ramirez's statement established several important facts inculpatory to Bernal. In particular, Grose's summary of Ramirez's statement put Bernal and Rodarte together the night before the robbery. The night before the robbery was also the night that Tucker's car, which was used in the robbery, was stolen. Grose also established that Ramirez told him that the night before the robbery, Rodarte and Bernal left the house together in one car, but returned separately in two cars. Rodarte's statement, coupled with Ramirez's statement, both as relayed through Grose, tended to prove that Bernal was involved in the planning and theft of the car, which in turn leads to the reasonable conclusion that he also planned and participated in the robbery the next day. Thus, the order of the testimony and the evidence that such testimony established created the links necessary to render Rodarte's statement inferentially inculpatory as to Bernal. Turning to a consideration of the specific content of Rodarte's statement, it implicates him in the criminal activity of the car theft and exculpates him as to the robbery. The statement does not expressly deny Bernal's involvement in the theft of the car or in the robbery. Further, Rodarte's admission to the theft of the car, his express denial of involvement in the robbery, and the other evidence at trial linking Rodarte to Bernal and both men to the theft of the car, the robbery, and to both crime scenes, created for the jury the reasonable inference that Bernal participated in the robbery. Importantly, Rodarte's adamant denial of participation in the robbery created the reasonable inference that Bernal may have been the principal in the robbery. We thus view Rodarte's statement, while facially inculpating himself as to the car theft, as attempting to shift the blame for the robbery to the only other individual implicated by the other evidence, namely Bernal. See, e.g., Williamson, 512 U.S. at 603, 114 S.Ct. 2431 (And when seen with other evidence, an accomplice's self-inculpatory statement can inculpate the defendant directly: `I was robbing the bank on Friday morning,' coupled with someone's testimony that the declarant and the defendant drove off together Friday morning, is evidence that the defendant also participated in the robbery.). Additionally, the fact that the prosecution offered the statement at Bernal's trial further supports our conclusion that the statement was inferentially inculpatory as to Bernal for purposes of an 804(b)(3) analysis. See, e.g., United States v. McCleskey, 228 F.3d 640, 644 (6th Cir.2000)(noting that when the government seeks to introduce a statement under 804(b)(3), it tends to inculpate the defendant by spreading or shifting onto him some, much, or all of the blame). Finally, in his closing argument, the prosecution made explicit the inculpatory connection between Rodarte's statement regarding the car and Bernal's alleged guilt: Once again, the last piece of evidence showing the guilt is the association. And it's the association that night when getting the car, and the next day in the bank. That's the association that we care about.
Having determined that Rodarte's statement is inculpatory as to Bernal, Newton compels the following analysis and conclusion. First, Rodarte was unavailable, as required. Second, the statement tended to subject Rodarte to criminal liability. Finally, because the statement is inferentially inculpatory as to Bernal, the People must show by a preponderance of evidence that the corroborating circumstances surrounding the making of the statement, not including other independent evidence, satisfy the Confrontation Clause's requirement of trustworthiness and reliability. Although Rodarte's statement satisfies the first two prongs of 804(b)(3), we find that the third 804(b)(3) prong of corroborating circumstances, as interpreted by Newton, was not satisfied. The record reveals the following facts regarding the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement: Detective Grose of the Brighton Police Department interviewed Rodarte the day of his arrest, January 30, 1997, while he was in police custody at the Brighton police station. Over the course of several hours on that day, which was approximately six weeks after the robbery, Grose conducted several interviews with Rodarte. Between each interview, Rodarte was placed in a holding cell at the police station. Further, Grose testified that Rodarte was worried, particularly about what kind and how much evidence the police had against him, during the interviews. Under Newton, the where, when, to whom, and what prompted factors all indicate that the statement was untrustworthy. Newton, 966 P.2d at 575-76; see also Lilly, 527 U.S at 131, 119 S.Ct. 1887; Stevens, 29 P.3d at 313. Similarly, the factors articulated by the Tenth Circuit and cited with approval by Stevens lead to the conclusion that Rodarte's statement was not sufficiently trustworthy to satisfy 804(b)(3)'s corroborating circumstances requirement, which incorporates the requirements of the Confrontation Clause. A review of the interview transcripts, which amount to one continuous statement, reveals that the content of Rodarte's statement was contradictory in many places. In speaking about the car theft, Rodarte told Grose that he stole the car in order to sell it to four other men, whom he did not know. He further said that he did not know what the men were planning to do with the car. Later, however, he stated that he knew the men were going to do something illegal, perhaps even commit a robbery. Additionally, Rodarte's statement is peppered with statements such as I don't remember and I am not sure. Thus, the nature and character of the statement was contradictory, elusive, and inconsistent, none of which supports a finding that the statement is trustworthy. Further, the declarant's probable motivations for making the statement, as well as the circumstances under which the statement was made, also lead us to conclude that the statement is untrustworthy. Although he did provide a detailed account of the car theft as well as the four men who allegedly asked him to steal the car, the entirety of the statement makes it clear that Rodarte was meeting with Grose in an effort to protect himself from going to jail. At one point he tells Grose: I'm trying to help myself out dude. I swear to God. But I don't want to go down nowhere dude. I don't want to go down on nothing. Even Grose, a detective and witness for the prosecution, recognized the untrustworthiness of Rodarte's statement. At a motions hearing that addressed, among other issues, the admissibility of Rodarte's statement to Grose, Grose responded to the court's question of why Rodarte was upset during the interviews with the following explanation: Because he was caught in several lies, and he was being confused as to time, where he was at. And he was getting frustrated because I was going back over his statements and he was changing his statements, and he was confused. The motivation to mix falsehood with truth thus permeated Rodarte's statement and as a result we cannot conclude that his confession regarding the car theft, while denying participation in the robbery, contained the constitutionally required guarantees of trustworthiness. In contrast, we conclude that Rodarte's statement both attempted to shift blame for the robbery as well as sought to place himself in a light more favorable than Bernal by denying the greater of the two offenses, the robbery, while creating the inference that Bernal participated in that greater offense. Thus, the record compels us to conclude that the statement is inherently untrustworthy for purposes of the corroborating circumstances prong of 804(b)(3), which equates to a failure to satisfy the Confrontation Clause. Put another way, the presumption of untrustworthiness was not rebutted because it is not at all clear from the surrounding circumstances that the test of cross-examination would be of marginal utility. Lilly, 527 U.S. at 136, 119 S.Ct. 1887. In contrast, the nature of Rodarte's statement, coupled with the circumstances surrounding the making of the statement, indicate that cross-examination of Rodarte would have been invaluable in undermining the credibility of Rodarte and of his statement. The statement was thus erroneously admitted at Bernal's trial.
Our conclusion that Rodarte's statement is untrustworthy and was accordingly erroneously admitted against Bernal does not end the inquiry, however. A violation of the Confrontation Clause is subject to a constitutional harmless error analysis. [11] Blecha, 962 P.2d at 941-42. To be classified as constitutional harmless error, a court must be confident beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the guilty verdict. The constitutional harmless error test is not whether, in a trial, that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. Id. at 942. Because we remand on the issue of the admissibility of the impermissibly suggestive photo line-up, there are two possible resolutions to the erroneous admission of Rodarte's statement. If, on remand, the trial court finds that the out-of-court identification was not admissible and accordingly vacates Bernal's conviction and orders a new trial, then we direct the trial court to exclude Rodarte's statement at the new trial. However, if the trial court concludes that the out-of-court identification was admissible, then it would be required to complete a constitutional harmless error review. The court of appeals determined that the admission of Rodarte's statement was harmless error, and in the interest of judicial economy, we will also undertake such review at this time. The evidence presented, not considering Rodarte's statement, leads us to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the guilty verdict in this case was surely unattributable to the error. Specifically, the identification of Bernal by employees of the credit union (assuming that the eye-witnesses' identifications are admissible), Ramirez's statement implicating both Rodarte and Bernal in the theft of the car, and the testimony of an eyewitness in the parking lot of the credit union when the robbers were fleeing the scene, all lead us to believe that the admission of Rodarte's statement was constitutional harmless error. As stated in Wright: [T]he presence of corroborating evidence more appropriately indicates that any error in admitting the statement might be harmless, rather than that any basis exists for presuming the declarant to be trustworthy. Wright, 497 U.S. at 823, 110 S.Ct. 3139. In addition, the court gave a limiting instruction to the jury regarding the purposes for which they could consider Rodarte's statement. That instruction was given contemporaneously with Grose's testimony as well as at the conclusion of the trial, and stated that the statement could not be used to determine Bernal's guilt. Such an instruction, when given with an inferentially inculpatory statement, diminishes the possibility of reversible constitutional error. See, e.g., Marsh, 481 U.S. at 208, 107 S.Ct. 1702; Charles, 704 N.E.2d at 1142. Thus, we agree with the court of appeals that the other evidence at trial, coupled with the limiting instruction, renders the error of admitting Rodarte's statement constitutionally harmless.