Opinion ID: 1794090
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Extent of Corroboration

Text: Perhaps the consideration with the greatest range of divergent views is the level of corroboration that should be required with respect to exculpatory statements against penal interest. Defendant Musall asks us to adopt the threshold suggested in Weinstein: The court should only ask for sufficient corroboration to clearly permit a reasonable man to believe that the statement might have been made in good faith and that it could be true. If, for example, the proof is undisputed that the person confessing to a shooting could not have been at the scene of the crime because he was in prison, it will be excluded. But if there is evidence that he was near the scene and had some motive or background connecting him with the crime that should suffice. [Weinstein, ¶ 804(b)(3)[03], pp. 804-154 to 804-155.] In contrast, the prosecutor argues for a higher standard, contending that it is legally insufficient for a defendant to offer his own statement as the only corroborating circumstance for the declarant's statement. For guidance, we turn to the legislative history of FRE 804(b)(3) for assistance in ascertaining Congress' intent. [14] The abbreviated version of the evolution of FRE 804(b)(3) is that the United States Supreme Court proposed rules of evidence, which in turn went through various changes in the House of Representatives and the Senate before final enactment. For our purposes, important changes occurred with respect to the corroboration requirement. The Supreme Court's version of what became FRE 804(b)(3) provided: A statement tending to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborated. 11 Moore, Federal Practice (2d ed), § 804.01[12.-2], pp. VIII-230 (emphasis added). The House of Representatives revised and subsequently enacted this sentence, deleting corroborated and adding corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement. Id. The House Committee Report stated in relevant part: As for statements against penal interest, the [House] Committee shared the view of the Court that some such statements do possess adequate assurances of reliability and should be admissible. It believed, however, as did the Court, that statements of this type tending to exculpate the accused are more suspect and so should have their admissibility conditioned upon some further provision insuring trustworthiness. The proposal in the Court Rule to add a requirement of simple corroboration was, however, deemed ineffective to accomplish this purpose since the accused's own testimony might suffice while not necessarily increasing the reliability of the hearsay statement. The Committee settled upon the language unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement as affording a proper standard and degree of discretion. It was contemplated that the result in such cases as Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243, [33 S.Ct. 449, 57 L.Ed. 820] (19[13]), where the circumstances plainly indicated reliability, would be changed. [Moore, § 804.01[12.-2], p VIII-231, quoting House Conference Committee Report to Rule 804(b)(3), pp. 16-17.] Accordingly, although we need not decide the issue in the instant cases, if the only corroborating circumstance was the individual defendant's statement, standing alone, we might have a different situation. See, for example, United States v. Rodriguez, 706 F.2d 31, 40 (C.A.2, 1983). [15] However, we find other corroborating circumstances presented in this case, which we will explain below. Although Congress indicated what it believed would not be sufficient corroboration, it left the answer to what would be sufficient to case-by-case development. However, we need to be cognizant of the competing interests that were at issue in Donnelly. The state's interest in ensuring that evidence be credible has been recognized for centuries. As noted by the Court in Donnelly: It was very justly observed by a great judge that `all questions upon the rules of evidence are of vast importance to all orders and degrees of men; our lives, our liberty, and our property are all concerned in the support of these rules, which have been matured by the wisdom of ages, and are now revered from their antiquity and the good sense in which they are founded.' [ Donnelly, 228 U.S. at 276, 33 S.Ct. at 461, quoting Chief Justice Marshall in Queen v. Hepburn, 11 U.S. (7 Cranch) 290, 295, 3 L.Ed. 348 (1813), quoting Lord Kenyon in Rex v. Eriswell, 3 TR 721 (1790).] However, Congress, in enacting FRE 804(b)(3), expressly rejected the result in Donnelly and indicated that the historic rules of evidence should not be rigidly applied to exclude reliable exculpatory evidence. Justice Holmes' dissent in Donnelly persuasively explained why: The confession of Joe Dick, since deceased, that he committed the murder for which the plaintiff in error was tried, coupled with circumstances pointing to its truth, would have a very strong tendency to make any one outside of a court of justice believe that Donnelly did not commit the crime. I say this, of course, on the supposition that it should be proved that the confession really was made, and that there was no ground for connecting Donnelly with Dick.The rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic and common sense, less hampered by history than some parts of the substantive law. There is no decision by this court against the admissibility of such a confession; the English cases since the separation of the two countries do not bind us; the exception to the hearsay rule in the case of declarations against interest is well known; no other statement is so much against interest as a confession of murder;... and when we surround the accused with so many safeguards, some of which seem to me excessive, I think we ought to give him the benefit of a fact that, if proved, commonly would have such weight. [Id., 228 U.S. at 277-278, 33 S.Ct. at 461.] In short, the defendant's constitutional right to present exculpatory evidence in his defense and the rationale and purpose underlying MRE 804(b)(3) of ensuring the admission of reliable evidence must reach a balance. We believe they may be viewed as having an inverse relationship: the more crucial the statement is to the defendant's theory of defense, the less corroboration a court may constitutionally require for its admission. Rivera v. Director, Dep't of Corrections, 915 F.2d 280, 281 (C.A.7, 1990) (excluding vital evidence was an abuse of discretion); Slaughter, 891 F.2d at 698 (excluding crucial evidence was an abuse of discretion). In contrast, the more remote or tangential a statement is to the defense theory, the more likely other factors can be interjected to weigh against admission of the statement. Thomas, 62 F.3d at 1338 (where evidence was cumulative, exclusion was not an abuse of discretion); Fowlie, 24 F.3d at 1069 (exclusion of tangential evidence was not an abuse of discretion). Nevertheless, the constitutional background of this balancing test must be of foremost consideration. Because there can be no bright-line rule in this area, resolution must be case by case. But, as Justice Holmes observed, experience, logic and common sense should guide us in reaching a point where the appellate court will find that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the exculpatory evidence.