Opinion ID: 779707
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Trustworthiness of Statements Made in a Private Setting

Text: The Supreme Court has not addressed specifically the admissibility of a statement against interest made by an accomplice or co-conspirator in a private setting, rather than in a custodial setting to law-enforcement personnel. We have, however, relied on the residual trustworthiness doctrine of Ohio v. Roberts to hold when an accomplice makes a statement incriminating the defendant in private, to a friend, without mitigating his own role in the crime, the circumstances surrounding the statement provide a particularized guarantee of trustworthiness, which satisfies the Confrontation Clause. Boone, 229 F.3d at 1234 (drawing on Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980)). In Boone, an accomplice confided to his girlfriend that he and Boone had together committed an armed robbery. The girlfriend surreptitiously tape-recorded the conversation for the police. The court held the admission of the nontestifying accomplice's statement under the statement against penal interest exception to the hearsay rule did not violate Boone's Confrontation Clause rights. Boone, 229 F.3d at 1234. Unlike Lilly v. Virginia, which dealt with a confession obtained by police during an in-custody interrogation, the conversation in Boone occurred in what appeared to the accomplice to be a private setting. As far as the accomplice knew, there was no police involvement whatsoever. Boone, 229 F.3d at 1234. Looking at the circumstances as the accomplice perceived them, the court found the circumstances surrounding the statement made it inherently trustworthy. He simply was confiding to his girlfriend, unabashedly inculpating himself while making no effort to mitigate his own conduct. The circumstances and setting of Williams's statements distinguish this case from Lilly, as does the content of Williams's statements. It was unselfconsciously self-incriminating and not an effort to shift the blame. Id. (emphasis omitted). See also United States v. Tocco, 200 F.3d 401, 416 (6th Cir.2000), and United States v. Papajohn, 212 F.3d 1112, 1119 (8th Cir.2000), finding that the absence of incentive to shift blame renders a declarant's hearsay statement against penal interest admissible. So here, the attendant circumstances surrounding the statement against interest made by either Collins or Somerville to Munoz provide a particularized guarantee of trustworthiness satisfying the Confrontation Clause. The speaker made his admission to Munoz, a close friend, in a private setting, with no reason to think the police would become involved, unabashedly inculpating himself while making no effort to mitigate his own conduct or to shift blame. We agree with Padilla that Boone did not establish a universal rule that all declarations against penal interest made outside of police custody to persons other than police officers are per se trustworthy; rather, the inquiry whether the declaration was made under conditions which imparted a particularized guarantee of trustworthiness is fact-specific. Under the particular circumstances of this case, we find the statement was trustworthy. Padilla attempts to shift the focus of the inquiry from the circumstances under which the statement was originally made to the reliability of the hearsay relator's testimony. Citing Lilly, Padilla argues that no particularized guarantees of trustworthiness attached to the out-of-court statement because the relator, Munoz, was untrustworthy. Munoz was part of a group of youths who engaged in shoplifting and drug-using sprees together. At the party where he heard the incriminating statement, Munoz had ingested cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and alcohol. He admitted that when interrogated by the police about the statement, he told them whatever he thought they wanted to hear. Padilla argues there is no reliable guarantee the statement was ever made, apart from the reliability of Munoz. 4 Padilla's diversionary attack on Munoz's credibility is futile. First, Lilly is not relevant because it applies to custodial confessions to police, not to statements against interest made in a private setting. For Confrontation Clause purposes, this distinction is critical. Second, Munoz's credibility is a different issue from whether the circumstances surrounding the Collins/Somerville statement provided it with particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. See United States v. Satterfield, 572 F.2d 687 (9th Cir.1978), stating in dictum: A strong argument can be made that the credibility of the witness is irrelevant to admissibility under Rule 804(b)(3), which is basically a hearsay rule. A test for admissibility of hearsay statements based on the credibility of the witness who testifies about the statement is unrelated to the purpose of the general rule against hearsay. Hearsay statements are usually excluded because the declarant is unsworn and unavailable for cross-examination and because the jury cannot evaluate his demeanor.... The jury can evaluate the perception, memory, narration, and sincerity of the witness who testifies about the hearsay declaration, and that witness testifies under oath and subject to cross-examination. Id. at 691; see also United States v. Atkins, 558 F.2d 133, 135 (3rd Cir.1977) (stating that Rule 804(b)(3) directs the court to the trustworthiness of the declarant, not of the witness). The credibility of the witness remains an issue for the trier of fact once the statement has been admitted. From the viewpoint of the Confrontation Clause, a witness under oath, subject to cross-examination, and whose demeanor can be observed by the trier of fact, is a reliable informant not only as to what he has seen but what he has heard. Dutton v. Evans, 400 U.S. 74, 88, 91 S.Ct. 210, 27 L.Ed.2d 213 (1970); see also United States v. Bagley, 537 F.2d 162, 167 (5th Cir.1976). We, therefore, consider only the circumstances under which the statement was made to determine whether it possessed particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. The district court found the statement against penal interest to Munoz was inherently trustworthy because it was made voluntarily, in a private setting, and with no effort to mitigate the declarant's conduct. Further, we note that the declarant made the statement shortly after the group returned from the alley, close in time to the shooting, and presumably while still in an excited state. Because he made it to his friend Munoz, he had no reason to expect it would be disclosed to the police. The circumstances of this admission bring it within the rationale of Boone and the district court properly found that its admission did not violate the Confrontation Clause.