Opinion ID: 2976704
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admissibility of Confession

Text: The Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause states that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” U.S. Const. amend. VI. In Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), the Supreme Court held that testimonial out-of-court statements by witnesses are barred under the Confrontation Clause unless the witnesses are unavailable, and the defendant had a prior opportunity to cross-examine them, regardless of the reliability of the statements. Crawford overruled Roberts, which held that an unavailable witness’s statement against a criminal defendant nonetheless may be admissible if the statement “bears ‘adequate indicia of reliability,’” which the Court defined as either (1) falling within a “firmly rooted hearsay exception,” or (2) showing “particularized guarantees of trustworthiness.” Roberts, 448 U.S. at 66. -6- Stewart’s statement would be inadmissible under Crawford because it is clearly testimonial. See Crawford, 541 U.S. at 54; Stallings v. Bobby, 464 F.3d 576, 581 (6th Cir. 2006). Crawford does not apply retroactively, however. Dorchy v. Jones, 398 F.3d 783, 788 (6th Cir. 2005). Thus, it cannot be applied to the facts of Petitioner’s case because Crawford was decided two years after the final state court decision was rendered. See Baze v. Parker, 371 F.3d 310, 318 (6th Cir. 2004) (noting that “review is conducted in light of the law as it existed at the time of the final state court decision”). The proper question then is whether the statement was admissible under clearly-established Supreme Court precedent at the time when the Ohio Court of Appeals rendered its decision. In Stallings, 464 F.3d at 576, this Court addressed the issue presented in this case–whether the admission of a non-testifying witness’s hearsay statements to the police was contrary to the Supreme Court’s holding in Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116 (1999), and other Supreme Court precedent. In holding that the state court decision was an unreasonable application of federal law, we reasoned as follows: Prior to Crawford, a hearsay statement was considered admissible for purposes of the Confrontation Clause if the statement bore “adequate ‘indicia of reliability,’” which could be inferred if the evidence fell “within a firmly rooted hearsay exception.” Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 66, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980). In 1999, a plurality of the Supreme Court held that “accomplices' confessions that inculpate a criminal defendant are not within a firmly rooted exception to the hearsay rule as that concept has been defined in our Confrontation Clause jurisprudence.” Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 134, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999) (footnote omitted). In doing so, the Court said: “It is clear that our cases consistently have viewed an accomplice's statements that shift or spread the blame to a criminal defendant as falling outside the realm of those ‘hearsay exception[s] [that are] so trustworthy that adversarial testing can be expected to add little to [the statements’] reliability.’” Id. at 133, 119 S.Ct. 1887 (alteration in original) (quoting White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 357, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992)); see also Williamson v. United States, 512 U.S. 594, 599, 114 S.Ct. -7- 2431, 129 L.Ed.2d 476 (1994) (“that a person is making a broadly self-inculpatory confession does not make more credible the confession's non-self-inculpatory parts”). -8- Stallings, 464 F.3d at 576; see also Hill v. Hofbauer, 337 F.3d 706 (6th Cir. 2003).1 Thus, for the 1 In Hill, we addressed an analogous situation. The issue there was whether the state court admission of defendant’s custodial confession, which inculpated both the defendant and his codefendants, was contrary to and an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent. There, however, the state court decision was issued prior to Lilly. In holding that the state court decision was an unreasonable application of clearly established Supreme Court precedent at the time the state court ruled, we reasoned as follows: In Lilly, a plurality unequivocally stated that confessions made by a co-defendant inculpating not only himself but his co-criminals are “inherently unreliable” and not within a “firmly rooted” hearsay exception for statements against penal interest. Lilly, 527 U.S. at 131, 119 S.Ct. 1887. Accordingly, the Court ruled that under the framework discussed in Roberts, a co-defendant’s custodial confession cannot be entered into evidence absent additional “guarantees of trustworthiness.” The Court “distinguishe[d] accomplices’ confessions that inculpate themselves and the accused as beyond a proper understanding of the against penal-interest exception because an accomplice often has a considerable interest in ‘confessing and betraying his cocriminals.’” Id. at 131, 119 S.Ct. 1887 (citing 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1477, at 358, n. 1 (J. Chadbourn rev. 1974)). The Court further distinguished the confessions of accomplices from the statements of co-conspirators made in furtherance of a conspiracy, which have traditionally been held trustworthy, because in the case of custodial confessions, the government is typically “involved in the statements’ production.” Therefore such statements do not bear the same indicia of reliability as is present in statements made of the declarant's own accord. See id. at 137, 119 S.Ct. 1887. Moreover, the Supreme Court expressly referenced past Supreme Court cases in achieving its result in Lilly, stating that “[i]t is clear that our cases consistently have viewed an accomplice's statements that shift or spread the blame to a criminal defendant as falling outside the realm of those ‘hearsay exception[s] [that are] so trustworthy that adversarial testing can be expected to add little to [the statements’] reliability.’ ” Id. at 133, 119 S.Ct. 1887 (quoting White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 357, 112 S.Ct. 736, 116 L.Ed.2d 848 (1992)) (emphasis added) (alterations in original); . . . Lilly, id. at 131 (citing Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965)). .... Douglas, Bruton, and Lee indicate that the Supreme Court has held statements made -9- reasons articulated in Stallings, the state court decision is an unreasonable application of Supreme Court precedent as it existed when the state court ruled. Furthermore, the state court of appeals in Stallings presented the same three reasons articulated by the appellate court in this case. See Stallings, 464 F.3d at 579 (quoting Ohio Court of Appeals ruling). Thus, under Stallings, and for the reasons articulated by the district court in this case, the Ohio Court of Appeals’ ruling violated the standards set forth under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).