Opinion ID: 1057780
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Statements by Co-Defendant

Text: The Defendant next contends that the trial court erred by excluding Finley's statements about the robbery in violation of the rule against hearsay. The statements were made during an interrogation by Sergeants Moses and Max on the day after police caught both co-defendants with stolen merchandise in their car: Sgt. Moses: Did you participate in the robbery of the Forrest City Grocery truck, which occurred at 264 Scott St., on Wednesday, August 28th, 2003, at or about 1:40 pm? [10] Finley: Yes. Sgt. Moses: Were you armed with a weapon? Finley: No. Sgt. Moses: Was anyone else with you when the robbery occurred? Finley: Yes, Andre Dotson. . . . . Sgt. Moses: Was Andre Dotson armed with a weapon? Finley: No. Sgt. Moses: Describe to us in detail the events surrounding this robbery? Finley: Andre and I were in the area of Scott job hunting and stopped at Scott Street Tomato House. I asked the guy out front if they were accepting applications and he said no. We left the warehouse and drove down the street and seen a guy pushing some cigarettes in a store. Andre said for me to pull behind the truck and I started putting the cigarettes in the back seat of the car. When the guy came back out the store, we both got in the car and pulled off. We pulled around the corner and stopped and I put the tag back on the car. We took some of the cigarettes off the back seat and put them in the trunk of the car. Then we left again and that's when the police saw us and started chasing us. . . . . Sgt. Moses: Did you ever at any time see Andre with a gun or anything that looked like a gun? Finley: No. The Defendant concedes that the above statements are hearsay, which is generally inadmissible. Tenn. R. Evid. 801; 802. He argues, however, that Finley's statements fall under the hearsay exception for statement[s] against interest made by an unavailable declarant. Tenn. R. Evid. 804(b)(3). Initially, questions concerning the admissibility of evidence rest within the sound discretion of the trial court, and this Court will not interfere in the absence of abuse appearing on the face of the record. See State v. DuBose, 953 S.W.2d 649, 652 (Tenn.1997); State v. Van Tran, 864 S.W.2d 465, 477 (Tenn.1993); State v. Harris, 839 S.W.2d 54, 73 (Tenn.1992). An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court applies an incorrect legal standard or reaches a conclusion that is illogical or unreasonable and causes an injustice to the party complaining. State v. Ruiz, 204 S.W.3d 772, 778 (Tenn.2006) (citing Howell v. State, 185 S.W.3d 319, 337 (Tenn.2006)). `[D]iscretionary choices are not left to a court's inclination, but to its judgment; and its judgment is to be guided by sound legal principles.' State v. Lewis, 235 S.W.3d 136, 141 (Tenn.2007) (alteration in original) (quoting Martha S. Davis, Standards of Review: Judicial Review of Discretionary Decisionmaking, 2 J.App. Prac. & Process 47, 58 (2000) (hereinafter Davis)). In order for hearsay to qualify for any exception under Rule 804, the declarant must be unavailable. Tenn. R. Evid. 804(a). When Finley asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, he became unavailable for the purpose of Rule 804 of the Tennessee Rules of Evidence. [11] After a declarant has been found to be unavailable, one of the exceptions in subsection (b) must apply for the statement to be admitted as testimony. The Defendant, who intended to use the statement as proof that he was unarmed, argues that Rule 804(b)(3) of the Tennessee Rules of Evidence governs: A statement which was at the time of its making so far contrary to the declarant's pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far tended to subject the declarant to civil or criminal liability or to render invalid a claim by the declarant against another, that a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. The statements made by Finley fall into three general categories: (1) his admission to participation in the Mitchell robbery just before his arrest; (2) his claim that neither he nor the Defendant had a gun; and (3) his narrative description of the robbery. In order to determine whether the statements in the confession were against Finley's interest, we must examine each specific assertion. See, e.g., Williamson v. United States, 512 U.S. 594, 599-600, 114 S.Ct. 2431, 129 L.Ed.2d 476 (1994) (The fact that a person is making a broadly self-inculpatory confession does not make more credible the confession's non-self-inculpatory parts. One of the most effective ways to lie is to mix falsehood with truth, especially truth that seems particularly persuasive because of its self-inculpatory nature.); [12] People v. Campa, 36 Cal.3d 870, 206 Cal.Rptr. 114, 686 P.2d 634, 641 (1984) ([D]eclarations against penal interest may contain self-serving and unreliable information. Thus, an approach which would find a declarant's statement wholly credible solely because it incorporates an admission of criminal culpability is inadequate.); Osborne v. Commonwealth, 43 S.W.3d 234, 241 (Ky.2001) ([E]ach statement within the broader narrative must be examined individually to determine whether it is, in fact, self-inculpatory. If not, it is inadmissible.). First, Finley's confession to the robbery is clearly against his penal interest; however, the statement does not tend to exculpate the Defendant for the robbery. As this Court has previously observed, the most frequent application of [Rule 804(b)(3)] in criminal cases is the tender of hearsay evidence that an unavailable declarant had confessed to the witness that declarant, not defendant, committed the crime that is the subject of the prosecution. Smith v. State, 587 S.W.2d 659, 660 (Tenn.1979). Such was not the situation here. Finley did not claim that he alone committed the robbery. To the contrary, he implicated the Defendant. In consequence, Finley's confession would not have tended to prove the Defendant's innocence. Second, Finley's assertion that neither he nor the Defendant was armed is not against the declarant's interest. At the time he made the statements, he faced prosecution for aggravated robbery. An essential element to aggravated robbery is that it be [a]ccomplished with a deadly weapon or by display of any article used or fashioned to lead the victim to reasonably believe it to be a deadly weapon. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-402 (2007). Thus, the absence of a gun would tend to exculpate Finley from the crime of aggravated robbery. As the United States Supreme Court has pointed out, [s]elf-exculpatory statements are exactly the ones which people are most likely to make even when they are false; and mere proximity to other, self-inculpatory, statements does not increase the plausibility of the self-exculpatory statements. Williamson, 512 U.S. at 600, 114 S.Ct. 2431. Finally, whether Finley's account of the robbery is against his interest is a more difficult question. The narrative contains both disserving and self-serving assertions. On the one hand, Finley, arrested as he fled from the Mitchell robbery, admitted his guilt prior to his description of the details of the crime. Thus, his participation in the crime was nearly certain, and his additional assertions were only nominally against his interest. On the other hand, his statement would support the claim that the Defendant was unarmed. To determine whether a statement is predominately self-serving or disserving, we look to the totality of the circumstances in which the statement was made. See Gray v. State, 368 Md. 529, 796 A.2d 697, 704 (2002) (In determining the probable state of mind of a reasonable person in the position of the declarant, it is perhaps as important to consider the totality of circumstances under which the statement was made as to consider the contents of the statement.). Because Finley, practically caught red-handed by the police, had already confessed to stealing the cigarettes and was claiming simply that he was unarmed at the time, a fact that might lessen his culpability, it is our conclusion that the narrative description of the robbery was predominately self-serving or, at the least, not against his interest. In our view, the trial court correctly excluded this narrative as hearsay not subject to any exception. By examining each of the assertions individually, it is our conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in its determination that Finley's statements were not against his penal interest. The Court of Criminal Appeals properly held that the exclusion of Finley's statements was not error.