Opinion ID: 196936
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Waiver by Homicide: The Hearsay Objections.

Text: 24 Houlihan and Nardone next argue that, even if they waived their confrontation rights, the district court should not have admitted Sargent's hearsay statements because they were tinged with self-interest (having been made in police custody with a stiff sentence for distributing large quantities of narcotics in prospect) and therefore lacked circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness. Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(5). On the facts of this case, we agree with the district court, see Houlihan, 887 F.Supp. at 362, 367, that Houlihan's and Nardone's misconduct waived not only their confrontation rights but also their hearsay objections, thus rendering a special finding of reliability superfluous. 25 The Supreme Court has yet to plot the crossroads at which the Confrontation Clause and the hearsay principles embedded in the Evidence Rules intersect. The question is subtly nuanced. Though the two bodies of law are not coterminous, they husband essentially the same interests. See California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 155-56, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 1933-34, 26 L.Ed.2d 489 (1970). Both attempt to strike a balance between the government's need for probative evidence and the defendant's stake in testing the government's case through cross-examination. See Ohio v. Roberts, 448 U.S. 56, 65, 100 S.Ct. 2531, 2538, 65 L.Ed.2d 597 (1980). As a result, whether hearsay principles are more or less protective of a defendant's right to cross-examination than confrontation principles depends on the point at which the balance is struck in any particular instance (recognizing, however, that the balance can be struck at different levels in different cases). See Green, 399 U.S. at 156, 90 S.Ct. at 1934. 26 In this case, we can take matters a step further. In constructing the balance the main interest that must be offset against the government's need for evidence is the accused's right to confrontation (for this is the right from which the right to cross-examine springs). Once the confrontation right is lifted from the scales by operation of the accused's waiver of that right, the balance tips sharply in favor of the need for evidence. See Thai, 29 F.3d at 814 (holding that a defendant who waives his confrontation right by wrongfully procuring a witness's silence also waives hearsay objections vis-a-vis that witness); United States v. Aguiar, 975 F.2d 45, 47 (2d Cir.1992) (similar); see also Steele, 684 F.2d at 1201 (noting that English and American courts have consistently relaxed the hearsay rule when the defendant wrongfully causes the witness' unavailability). Here, then, inasmuch as Houlihan and Nardone waived their confrontation right by colloguing to murder Sargent, they simultaneously waived their right to object on hearsay grounds to the admission of his out-of-court statements. 6 Hence, the district court appropriately eschewed the request for findings under Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(5). 27 Houlihan and Nardone have a fallback position. They suggest that the district court's admission of Sargent's out-of-court statements violated their rights to due process because the admissions allowed them to be convicted on the basis of unreliable evidence. See Green, 399 U.S. at 163 n. 15, 90 S.Ct. at 1938 n. 15 (ruminating that considerations of due process, wholly apart from the Confrontation Clause, might prevent convictions where a reliable evidentiary basis is totally lacking). We reject this initiative. Whatever criticisms justifiably might be levelled against Sargent's statements, the portions of those statements that Judge Young allowed into evidence are not so unreliable as to raise due process concerns. Other evidence abundantly corroborates (and in many instances replicates) Sargent's account. For instance, his description of the organization's modus operandi and his assessment of Houlihan's leadership role were confirmed and described in excruciating detail by a galaxy of live witnesses (e.g., Michael Nelson, Bud Sweeney, Cheryl Dillon). 7 No more is exigible. 28