Court Opinion

ID: 9684195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:50:09.313142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:53.876214
License: Public Domain

Boyle, J.
I respectfully dissent. The Court concludes that the Constitution of the United States1 and MRE 804(b)(3) compel the admission of Matthew Copeland’s self-serving statement. I disagree.
The jury in each case learned of Copeland’s causative act through other evidence. What was contained in the statement that the juries did not know was denial and disavowal: Copeland did not rob, Copeland did not rape, Copeland did not premeditate, and Copeland did not know what he was doing because he was under the influence of drags. Thus, the Court’s conclusion that the statement is self-incriminating to the degree that a reasonable person would not have said it unless it were true is clearly not warranted. The statement was not truly inculpatory.
Second, the statements regarding the defendants were neutral or self-serving and were not exculpatory *304of them. Finally, there are insufficient, corroborating circumstances that clearly indicate the trustworthiness of Copeland’s statement. Nothing in the constitution or MRE 804(b)(3) compels the admission of Copeland’s statement. The trial court properly suppressed it.
The test for admissibility under MRE 804(b)(3) is not whether the statement would be probative in the declarant’s trial. Nor is admissibility determined by how “crucial the statement is to the defendant’s theory of defense . . . .” Ante at 279. While the importance of the evidence in relation to the theory of defense is critical to a claimed due process violation, the foundation of the exception is circumstances indicating trustworthiness. The preliminary question of admissibility clearly cannot turn on rote application of the hearsay rule.2 Just as clearly, necessity does not determine admissibility. The Court’s formulation construes the Due Process Clause as if it guaranteed the use of unreliable evidence, provided it is crucial. Correctly understood, due process requires the state to put reliable third-party statements before the jury, despite the hearsay rule.
i
THE DEFINITION OF STATEMENT
The Court does not address a preliminary question regarding the definition of the tenm “statement” for statements against penal interest. MRE 804(b)(3).
*305MRE 804(b)(3) tracks the language of FRE 804(b)(3) and in pertinent part provides as follows:
A statement which was at the time of its making só far . . . tended to subject the declarant to civil or criminal liability . . . that a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. A statement tending to expose the declarant to criminal liability and offered to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.
In People v Watkins, 438 Mich 627, 636, 646; 475 NW2d 727 (1991), Justice Cavanagh concluded that the term “statement” should not be read broadly to encompass the declarant’s entire confession. In the context of hearsay “statements” inculpating an accused, Justice Cavanagh reasoned:
[O]ur confidence in the trustworthiness of a purported statement against interest extends only insofar as the specific factual assertions contained within the statement are, in fact, against the declarant’s interest. . . . Each factual assertion . . . must be viewed as narrowly and specifically as reasonably possible, and the court must separately ask whether each specific assertion is so intrinsically against the declarant’s interest that a reasonable person would not have said it unless it were true. [Emphasis in the original.]
Statements not against interest “taken by themselves” are not to be trusted.
After our decision in Watkins, the United States Supreme Court explored the definition of the term “statement” in 804(b)(3). As in Watkins, the issue was the scope of the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest, and the context was use *306of statements inculpatory of a defendant. In Williamson v United States, 512 US 594; 114 S Ct 2431; 129 L Ed 2d 476 (1994), the Court held that the term refers not to the declarant’s entire narrative, but covers only the parts of it that are individually self-inculpatory. Depending on the circumstances, statements that are ostensibly disserving may be either neutral or self-serving. While Williamson was remanded to determine whether the declarant’s statement that he transported drugs was truly against his own interest, five justices felt it was not, because they concluded the declarant’s primary purpose was to keep himself out of prison by confessing and handing over the defendant.
After Williamson, the methodology of analyzing each portion of a statement to determine whether it is against penal interest has been applied to statements offered to exculpate the defendant by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, e.g., United States v Butler, 71 F3d 243 (CA 7, 1995), and by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, United States v Thomas, 62 F3d 1332 (CA 11, 1995). Justice Kennedy’s concurrence in Williar/ison observes that “the Court’s decision applies to státements against penal interest that exculpate the accused as well as to those that inculpate the accused.” Thus, Justice Kennedy opined that, “if the declarant said, T robbed the store alone,’ only the portion of the statement in which the declarant said ‘I robbed the store’ could be introduced by a criminal defendant on trial for the robbery.” 114 S Ct 2443.
The Court explains its failure to address the question by correctly observing that the prosecutor did not raise the argument. However, because the initial *307question before us is what this Court meant in the rule we promulgated, the failure to explain that the word “statement” is to be analyzed differently for exculpatory purposes than it is for inculpatory purposes, and differently than the identical language construed by the United States Supreme Court, is problematic. In my view, use of the Watkins-Williamson methodology clearly demonstrates that specific portions of the statement are not admissible because they are either neutral or self-serving. However, whether viewed individually or as a whole, I submit that Copeland’s statement was not admissible under the hearsay exception of MRE 804(b)(3).
A
COPELAND’S STATEMENT WAS NOT TRULY SELF-INCULPATORY
Copeland’s “statement” regarding his state of mind was not inculpatory. Speaking for the Court in Williamson, 114 S Ct 2435, Justice O’Connor observed, “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.” First, Copeland’s denial of rape, robbery, and any preplanned felony is wholly self-serving. Second, although Copeland’s excuse for stabbing the victim, voluntary drug-induced intoxication, would not negate the element of malice for second-degree murder as a matter of law, People v Langworthy, 416 Mich 630; 331 NW2d 171 (1982), it is also a classically self-serving attempt to avoid responsibility — i.e., I did it, but I wasn’t in my right mind. Despite being linked to a self-inculpatory admission of stabbing, these statements, considered either individually or as a whole, are not inculpatory. Thus, the trial court and *308the Court of Appeals correctly concluded that Copeland’s statement was inadmissible in the defendants’ trial because it did not furnish a basis for concluding that it would not have been made unless it were true.
Copeland was asked four times whether he forced the victim to have sex. He denied forcible sex and said the victim willingly had oral sex with him after her clothes were tom off because “she liked it rough.” Copeland was asked once whether he, along “with [his] friends . . . attempted to rob [the victim].” He answered, “[n]o.” Copeland thus denied involvement in forcible sex or in a robbery.
Before he began to speak about the events in the pairk, Copeland established that he had taken three hits of mescaline and was feeling “the full [e]ffect” when they picked up the victim. Before he described the stabbing, Copeland said “I had it in me that [the victim] was Spooner.” When squarely confronted twice with questions regarding his state of mind when he stabbed the victim, Copeland claimed he could “taste the color of a tree” and that it was that he thought she was his cheating ex-girlfriend, Spooner, that “made me go off like I did.” In total, on four separate occasions in the course of a three-page interview, Copeland denied any intent to kill the victim.
As the United States Supreme Court has cautioned, “[t]he question under rule 804(b)(3) is always whether the statement was sufficiently against the declarant’s penal interest ‘that a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true,’ and this question can only be answered in light of all the surrounding circumstances.” Williamson, 114 S Ct 2437. Thus, the most significant flaw in the Court’s analysis *309is the failure to evaluate Copeland’s disavowals of responsibility and his acceptance of responsibility for the stabbing in light of the facts. Copeland denied the acts he could anticipate the codefendants also would deny: rape and robbery. However, Copeland previously had told three other noninvolved persons that he had stabbed the victim and believed that “everyone else” knew about it. He admitted the only act he anticipated could be contradicted, the stabbing, but did not accept responsibility for it.
Copeland’s statement was therefore against his interest in only one particular, (a fact known to the defendants’ juries) — namely, that he stabbed the victim. Confronted with the fact that he was being questioned in connection with the murder by stabbing of a person whom he had indiscriminately admitted stabbing, Copeland gave the most likely false statement he could give, that he was not in his right mind when he committed the act. Regardless of whether the penal-interest exception for statements that exculpate a defendant requires analysis of the entire statement or its discrete assertions, the statement is not admissible.
As Judge Guy noted for the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Turpin v Kassulke, 26 F3d 1392 (CA 6, 1994), in distinguishing the case from Chambers v Mississippi, 410 US 284; 93 S Ct 1038; 35 L Ed 2d 297 (1973), and Donnelly v United States, 228 US 243; 33 S Ct 49; 57 L Ed 820 (1913), the declarant’s statement was not truly inculpatory:
Most important, although Brown’s statement arguably was against her penal interest, a reading of the statement as a whole reveals that Brown’s purpose in making the statement was to avoid criminal liability to the extent possible, *310not to accept it. . . . The rationale supporting the hearsay rule’s penal-interest exception — that persons generally “will not make damaging statements against themselves unless they are true” — therefore does not apply to Brown’s statement. [Id. at 1398 (citations omitted; emphasis in the original).]
Copeland’s statement fails the threshold test of reliability that a reasonable person would not have made the statement unless it were true. Cf. United States v Magana-Olvera, 917 F2d 401 (CA 9, 1990); United States v Tovar, 687 F2d 1210 (CA 8, 1982).
The Court’s response to the fact that Copeland’s drug abuse excuse was not “precisely, and only, to the extent that it is, in fact, against [his] interest,” Watkins, supra at 638, is a legal non sequitur and a factual misstatement. First, the Court employs a presumption that suspects in custody will shift blame to someone else, from which it concludes that Copeland’s statement was against his interest because he did not explicitly shift blame to Barrera and Musall. Although blame-shifting statements are traditionally suspect, the Court errs in suggesting that the fact that Copeland did not shift the blame is evidence of reliability.3 On the contrary, post-arrest statements are suspect because of the strong motivation to exonerate oneself, of which blame-shifting is a typical example. Williamson, 114 S Ct 2435.
In the criminal context, any statement that tends to reduce the charges or mitigate the punishment for which the declarant might be liable is considered self-*311serving. See Graham, Federal Practice & Procedure (interim ed), § 6795, p 810, n 10. Shifting blame to another is one method of exoneration. It does not logically follow that if that method is not employed, another excuse is made more reliable.
Copeland’s disincentive for not stating that the others also stabbed the victim is not the issue. The issue is whether Copeland’s denial of any felonious intent and his claim that he was not in his right mind at the time of the stabbing is against his interest. The rationale in Turpin applies to any method of avoiding criminal responsibility and Copeland used the only out he thought was available to him: admitting to hiring a prostitute who liked “rough sex” and claiming that he should not be held responsible for his actions.4
Additionally, the Court errs in suggesting that Copeland’s statement was not against his interest because he stated that he alone stabbed the victim, and the others did not participate. In fact, Copeland said:
They had knives on them, but not to my knowledge.
In Carson v Peters, 42 F3d 384, 386 (CA 7, 1994), the court recently addressed a similar factual scenario. In Carson, the defendant sought to admit the declarant’s statements because they failed to men*312tion the defendant as a participant. Judge Easter-brook concluded that failure to mention the defendant did not directly inculpate the declarant. Likewise, in this case, that Copeland stated that he did not know whether Barrera and Musall stabbed the victim is not directly inculpatory of Copeland. He did not state that he alone stabbed the decedent, he did not say that he alone ripped off her clothes,5 and he did not say that he alone had sex with her.
B
THE TEST OF ADMISSIBILITY FOR STATEMENTS OFFERED IN EXCULPATION IS NOT WHETHER THEY ARE PROBATIVE OF THE DECLARANT’S GUILT
The test for admissibility of statements offered in exculpation is not whether they are probative of the declarant’s guilt. The Court erroneously cites Rivera v Illinois Dep’t of Corrections, 915 F2d 280, 282 (CA 7, 1990), to conclude that “MRE 804(b)(3) merely requires that the statement be probative against the declarant.” Ante at 282. Judge Easterbrook explicitly recognized in Carson, supra, that the rationale of Rivera, supra, had been undermined by Williamson.
If a statement is reliable enough to condemn its author, how can it be too unreliable to use when it cuts against the prosecutor? The answer is that different parts of a statement may have radically different degrees of reliability. . . . Portions of inculpatory statements that pose no risk to the declarants are not particularly reliable; they are just garden variety hearsay. That recognition supplies the basis of Williamson v United States, [512] US [594]; 114 S Ct 2431; 129 L Ed 2d 476 (1994), which holds that in federal cases *313judges must separate the incriminatory portions of statements from other portions for purposes of FRE 804(b)(3).
Williamson tells us that portions of a confession that do not inculpate the declarant are not reliable enough for prosecutors to use against anyone other than the declarant. The Constitution therefore did not compel Illinois to let [defendant] use the omissions [the fact that neither of the confessions mentioned the defendant as a third party] from the . . . statements. [Id.]
Copeland’s statement that “not to my knowledge” had defendants stabbed the victim is a neutral statement regarding defendant’s participation that is garden variety hearsay. The Court’s use of the prosecutor’s argument in Copeland’s case does not address the question. The statement comes in against its maker because, regardless of its inculpatory aspects, it is an admission that is not hearsay. MRE 801(d)(2)(A).
In fact, the prosecutor’s argument in Copeland’s case is an argument that Mr. Copeland’s statement that drugs had obliterated his intent was a lie and ought not to be believed by the jury. Thus, the state’s theory of liability in the Copeland trial did not contradict the theory it followed in this case.
The essential disagreement between my view and that of the Court is whether Copeland’s statement that he had no felonious intent and killed the victim while hallucinating is reliable enough to be used by the jury to exonerate Barrera and Musall. But it is precisely because the “why” is the most clearly untrustworthy aspect of the statement as a statement of exculpatory motive made to diminish Copeland’s criminal liability that the statement does not satisfy the penal interest exception of MRE 804(b)(3). As *314Justice O’Coimor observed for the majority in Williamson:
And when part of the confession is actually self-exculpatory, the generalization on which Rule 804(b)(3) is founded becomes even less applicable. Self-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. [114 S Ct 2435 (emphasis added).]
The rationale that persons generally will not make damaging statements against themselves unless they are true does not apply to Copeland’s reason for stabbing the victim: that, although he forced himself to stab the victim because he thought she was Spooner, in effect, the devil made him do it.6 That self-exculpatory statement is exactly one “which people are most likely to make even when they are false . . . Mere proximity to the self-inculpatory statement that Copeland stabbed her “does not increase the plausibility” of the self-exculpatory statement. 114 S Ct 2435.
Although Copeland’s confession was not retracted, and there was no indication of the hope of any concessions, the statement regarding his state of mind is self-serving and not truly against his interest. It does not satisfy the rationale of MRE 804(b)(3).
*315n
COPELAND’S STATEMENT WAS NOT EXCULPATORY OF THE DEFENDANTS
Additionally, the defendants were not constitutionally entitled to the admission of Copeland’s statement regarding his state of mind because the presence or absence of malice on Copeland’s part was not exculpatory of the state of mind of the codefendants. The Due Process Clause does not require the admission of statements proffered by the defense that are of “dubious exculpatory value.” Turpin, supra at 1397.
Analysis of the exculpatory value of Copeland’s acts and state of mind is more difficult than the question whether Copeland’s statement was truly against his interest. We have not had occasion since People v Aaron, 409 Mich 672; 299 NW2d 304 (1980), to revisit the question of the extent to which a co-felon may be convicted of felony murder where it is claimed that the death of a victim was not within the contemplation of the aider and abettor co-felons or reasonably foreseeable. People v Pitts, 84 Mich App 656; 270 NW2d 482 (1978).
While not free from doubt, it appears that the Court’s analysis of the exculpatory value of Copeland’s statement is actually directed to this causation question.7 The thrust of that analysis is that Copeland acted impulsively in the stabbing, and that his action *316is probative of defendants’ theory that they were merely present and that the stabbing was not within their common enterprise and was not reasonably foreseeable. This was the theory of defense that the jury actually heard. The question of causation is related to, but analytically distinct from, the question before us, which is whether Copeland’s professed lack of malice is exculpatory of Barrera and Musall’s state of mind.
The jury convicted Barrera and Musail on the prosecution’s theory of aiding and abetting first-degree felony murder.8 The crimes underlying this charge were larceny and criminal sexual conduct. The trial court properly instructed the jury that it could find the defendants guilty of felony murder if convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a death, the death was caused by the defendant, and, at the time of the act that caused the victim’s death, the defendant was committing or assisting another in the commission of either a larceny or criminal sexual conduct and possessed the requisite intent for second-degree murder.9
*317First, as a matter of law, Copeland’s lack of intent would not negate his own malice for second-degree murder.10 In People v Langworthy, supra, we rejected the claim that voluntary intoxication caused by drugs or alcohol negates the malice for second-degree murder. Accordingly, Copeland’s intoxication excuse does not negate the mens rea for felony murder or criminal sexual conduct.
Second, Copeland’s lack of malice would not negate malice on the part of either Barrera or Musall. Although Copeland’s felonious intent is not to be vicariously imputed to Barrera and Musall, People v Aaron, supra, Barrera and Musall could be convicted of felony murder if they aided or assisted the commission of the felony of criminal sexual conduct with a life-endangering state of mind, that is, either intent to kill, intent to do great bodily harm, or under circumstances indicating their own wanton and wilful disregard of the likelihood that the natural tendency of their behavior was to cause “death or serious injury.” Id. at 728.
In Sharlow v Israel, 767 F2d 373 (CA 7, 1985), the petitioner appealed the exclusion from evidence of alleged exculpatory statements of two defense witnesses. One witness would have testified that the codefendant said he was the one who had shot a person six times in the head. Another would have testified that the codefendant said he solicited the defendant to participate in a robbery and that the defendant refused and struggled with the codefendant to keep *318him from shooting. The court found the first statement not to be exculpatory under Chambers.
While [the] testimony did inculpate [the codefendant], her testimony was not critical to Shadow's [the defendant’s] case because it did not exculpate Shadow from being a party to the crime of murder; thus, under the facts presented to the jury, Shadow could still be found guilty for [the] murder under Wisconsin’s party to a crime statute. [Id. at 378.][11]
Similarly, in this case, even assuming that Copeland’s statement inculpated Copeland, it did not exculpate the defendants under a theory of aiding and abetting forcible sex. As long as the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Barrera and Musall committed or assisted in committing either larceny or criminal sexual conduct with any of the life-endangering states of mind constituting malice, each could be convicted of felony murder even if Copeland was the sole stabber.
The question is not whether Copeland’s statement that he “spontaneously” stabbed the victim is relevant to the defense;12 the only question is whether state-*319merits describing Copeland’s mental state13 support the defense theory that the defendants did not possess the requisite mental state for second-degree murder. Copeland’s statement regarding his hallucination speaks only of his own state of mind. The relevant inquiry is whether Barrera and Musall possessed the requisite state of mind.
Stated otherwise, that Copeland confessed to stabbing the woman does not negate the possibility that Barrera and Musall also possessed a state of mind sufficient to be found guilty of felony murder. The requisite intent to be convicted as an aider and abettor is that necessary to be convicted of the crime “as a principal.” People v Kelly, 423 Mich 261, 278; 378 NW2d 365 (1985). Malice as used in the context of second-degree murder for felony murder is a general intent crime and “if the aider and abettor participates in a crime with knowledge of the principal’s intent to kill or to cause great bodily harm, he is acting with ‘wanton and willful disregard’ sufficient to support a finding of malice under Aaron.” Id. at 278-279 (emphasis added).
Copeland is deemed in law to have acted with intent to kill. His professed absence of intent to kill *320would not exculpate defendants from responsibility for intent to do great bodily harm malice, or for reckless disregard malice — that; is, a life-endangering state of mind involving forcible sex by four men that included ripping off the victim’s clothes and kicking her. Evidence that Copeland had no malice because he was not capable of forming the mens rea is therefore no more exculpatory of Barrera and Musall’s lack of malice than Musall’s lack of malice would be if offered to exculpate Barrera or Barrera’s lack of malice if offered to exculpate Musall.
Nor is the remainder of Copeland’s statement exculpatory of the defendants. Barrera’s and Musall’s defense was that they merely were present at the scene of the crime. While Copeland’s statement may support the defense that the murder was not preplanned, it does not support a defense that the defendants did not aid or abet a felony murder. Instead, Copeland said in his statement that Barrera was driving the car they used to pick up the prostitute, that Musall received fellatio from the victim, and that they all proceeded to rip off her clothes and to throw them around. When Copeland had the opportunity to tell the investigating officer that the defendants did nothing and were merely present, he failed to do so. For instance, when asked what his friends did once they arrived at the park, Copeland responded, “[Musall], he got some head from the woman, I don’t recall what [Johnson] and [Barrera] were doing exactly.” When asked whether his friends participated in the stabbing, Copeland answered, “[t]hey had knives on them, *321but not to my knowledge.”14 When questioned about who kicked the woman, he stated, “I might have, I don’t remember exactly.” These statements are equivocal at best, and collateral to any arguably self-inculpatory statements. They are neutral, nonself-inculpatory statements that would appear to be excluded under Williamson. 114 S Ct 2435. Where Copeland could have said his friends were merely present, he instead claimed lack of memory.
Viewed in this light, this case is distinguishable from Chambers, supra. In Chambers, the prosecution’s theory against the defendant was that he was the sole killer. As the Court stated, “[t]he State’s proof at trial excluded the theory that more than one person participated in the shooting of Liberty. To the extent that McDonald’s sworn confession tended to incriminate him, it tended also to exculpate Chambers.” Id. at 297. When McDonald confessed to firing the fatal shot, the confession exonerated Chambers because the single person responsible for the crime was established to be McDonald, not the defendant.
While the Court recognizes that expert testimony could not establish or exclude multiple assailants, its analysis seems to assume that Copeland was the sole stabber. Copeland’s statement does not indicate this, and the medical testimony indicated multiple stab wounds. In this case, the fact that Copeland stabbed the victim does not exculpate Barrera and Musall from also stabbing her, nor does it exculpate them from aiding and abetting the felony murder by participating in the underlying larceny and criminal sexual *322conduct in circumstances indicating malice. Barrera’s statement admitted that he kicked the victim in the head because she was screaming and that he was the driver of the car. Musall’s statement indicated that Copeland demanded the victim’s money in the car, that she began hitting him, that he hit her three or four times in the face, and that he had sex with her after they got to the park and after she said, “don’t, don’t.” Accordingly, unlike McDonald’s statement in Chambers, Copeland’s admission that he stabbed the victim does not exculpate Barrera and Musall to the extent that it inculpates Copeland. Further, MusaU’s statement that he threw his knife away is consistent with the prosecution’s theory that Barrera and Musall aided and abetted Copeland.
in
THERE ARE NO CORROBORATING CIRCUMSTANCES INDICATING TRUSTWORTHINESS
Finally, the suppression of Copeland’s confession does not violate the defendants’ constitutional right to due process because the majority fails to identify any “corroborating circumstances [that] clearly indicate [its] trustworthiness . . . .” MRE 804(b)(3). As the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Evidence noted, statements against penal interest that tend to exculpate an accused are more suspect than other statements against penal interest.
“The refusal of the common law to concede the adequacy of a penal interest was no doubt indefensible in logic [citing Holmes’ Donnelly dissent], but one senses in the decisions a distrust of evidence of confessions by third persons offered to exculpate the accused arising from suspicions of fabrication either of the fact of the making of the confession or in its contents, enhanced in either instance by the *323required unavailability of the declarant. Nevertheless, an increasing amount of decisional law recognizes exposure to punishment for crime as a sufficient stake. The requirement of corroboration is included in the rule in order to effect an accommodation between these competing considerations. When the statement is offered by the accused by way of exculpation, the resulting situation is not adapted to control by rulings as to the weight of the evidence, and hence the provision is cast in terms of a requirement preliminary to admissibility. The requirement of corroboration should be construed in such a manner as to effectuate its purpose of circumventing fabrication.” [United States v Barrett, 539 F2d 244, 250-251 (CA 1, 1976) (quoting Notes of Advisory Committee on Proposed Rules, 28 USCA, FRE 804, p 448).]
The presumption behind this rule is that a suspect in custody has a strong motivation to lie in order to exonerate himself. Thus, “[t]he requirement of corroboration was written into the Rule to guard against the inherent danger that third party confessions tending to exculpate a defendant are the result of fabrication.” United States v Guillette, 547 F2d 743, 754 (CA 2, 1976).
In this regard, the Court’s newly created balancing rule is fundamentally flawed. The Court states that the defendant’s constitutional right to present exculpatory evidence and the requirement of reliability under MRE 804(b)(3) “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.” Ante at 279.
Corroboration of hearsay statements is a constitutional requirement, even if the evidence is sought to be admitted by the defense. Chambers held that an accused has a due process right to the admission of *324exculpatory hearsay provided it is accompanied by “persuasive assurances of trustworthiness.” 410 US 302. Chambers stated: .
The testimony rejected by the trial court here bore persuasive assurances of trustworthiness and thus was well within the basic rationale of the exception for declarations against interest. That testimony also was critical to Chambers’ defense. In these circumstances, where constitutional rights directly affecting the ascertainment of guilt are implicated, the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically to defeat the ends of justice. [Id.]
In other words, Chambers indicates that due process requires hearsay rules to admit rehable declarations against penal interest. Lee v McCaughtry, 933 F2d 536, 538 (CA 7, 1991). Chambers does not hold that unreliable evidence may be admitted simply because it is extremely significant to the defense case.
Further, the admission of only slightly corroborated evidence because it is crucial to the defense is contrary to the intent of the Rules Committee. The Rules Committee purposely imposed the corroboration requirement as a prerequisite to admissibility because it recognized that statements exculpating the accused are “not adapted to control by rulings as to the weight [not admissibility] of the evidence . . . .” Barrett, supra at 251. The balancing rule, however, allows evidence that is not sufficiently corroborated under the constitution to be heard and weighed by the jury.
The Court adopts a three-part test to determine whether a custodial confession bears sufficient indicia of reliability to be admitted under MRE 804(b)(3). That test, taken from United States v Garcia, 986 F2d 1135, 1140 (CA 7, 1993), is (1) whether the confess*325ing party and the exculpated party have a close relationship, (2) whether the confessor made a voluntary statement after being advised of his Miranda15 rights, and (3) whether there is any evidence that the statement was made in order to curry favor with authorities. Ante at 275.
This test is flawed in two respects. First, while a truly inculpatory and voluntary statement to police officers while in custody would indicate reliability, the fact that a statement is deemed voluntary under Miranda has no logical bearing on whether the declarant’s confession was free of the motive to mitigate the declarant’s role in the offense. Lee v Illinois, 476 US 530, 544; 106 S Ct 2056; 90 L Ed 2d 514 (1986); United States v Flores, 985 F2d 770, 782 (CA 5, 1993). As set forth above, even though Copeland’s statement was made voluntarily, his purpose in making the statement was to avoid criminal liability to the extent possible.16 Second, the test uses the absence of evidence of currying favor as indicating trustworthiness. As the court in Flores observed, however, “statements by suspects to law enforcement officials inculpatory of third parties are excluded because of the presumption that such motives exist, and the absence of evidence does not remove this presumption.” 985 F2d 782 (emphasis in original). A like presumption exists when, as in this case, the declarant attempts to minimize his own participation in the crime. By contrast with the situation where the absence of a motive to fabricate indicates reliability, Copeland’s drug-*326induced excuse indicates fabrication in an attempt to gain whatever he could in the difficult situation he faced. Thus, two of the three prongs of the Garcia test do not aid the determination of the reliability of the custodial statement.
The third Garcia factor inspects the relationship between the confessor and the party exculpated in the confession. In applying the test to the facts of this case, the opinion simply states, “we find that there was not a close relationship between Copeland and Barrera that would induce Copeland to ‘take the rap’ for Barrera.” Ante at 289. (The Court does not apply the test to the facts of Musall’s case.) The conclusion is belied by the evidence in this case. First, in Copeland’s confession, he refers to Barrera, Musall, and Johnson as “my friends” several times. In discussing the night in question, Copeland says that “[m]e, my three friends Mark, Fred and Mike we decided to get together and go out last Thursday night and to have a few laughs and get high off Mescaline drugs.” Thus, it was not fortuitous that the four suspects were together on the night of the murder; they had arranged the evening previously. In fact, their relationship was such that all four could agree to have sex with the same woman and Copeland, as the ringleader, did the talking for them because his friends did not know how to talk to girls. In addition, Barrera and Copeland were together on the night that they were arrested.17 Finally, given that Copeland had rea*327son to believe that the fact that he stabbed the victim was known by “everyone else,” he might well have thought that he had no choice but to accept blame, yet claim that he did not know what he was doing. The analysis also distinguishes this case from Donnelly, supra. In Donnelly, Justice Holmes noted that “there was no ground for connecting Donnelly with Dick [the confessor].” 228 US 277. The evidence in this case was to the contrary — Copeland and the defendants were friends and “running buddies.”
That leaves only one source of corroboration for Copeland’s statements — the statements of the defendants. Yet, as the Court recognizes, “if the only corroborating circumstance was the individual defendant’s statement, standing alone, we might have a different situation.” Ante at 278. Such corroboration is constitutionally deficient. Turpin, supra at 1397-1398; United States v Rodriguez, 706 F2d 31, 40 (CA 2, 1983); United States v Annese, 631 F2d 1041, 1045 (CA 1, 1980).
The legislative history of the rule demonstrates that the House committee rejected the notion that penal statements “simpliciter” contained sufficient corroboration, because even the accused’s own testimony might meet this test and inserted the language requiring corroborating circumstances that “ ‘clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement’ . . . .” 1974 US Code Cong & Admin News, pp 7089-7090.
*328Indeed, as the trial court and Court of Appeals noted, Copeland’s statements and those of the codefendants were inconsistent in several respects. Defendants contend in effect that Copeland said they did nothing, while Barrera admitted that he kicked the victim in the head before Copeland killed her and that Musall had oral sex with her after the forcible sex began.
The Court points to no corroborating circumstances indicating the statement is trustworthy. While purporting to recognize that statements of the codefendants do not furnish corroboration, United States v Rodriguez, supra, the application of the balancing rule uses the purported consistency between defendants’ statements and Copeland’s statement as corroboration of the reliability of the excluded evidence. The only other corroboration offered is that Copeland spoke after being advised of his rights, and the conclusive statement that there was not a close relationship between Barrera and Copeland. Ante at 289-290.
In conclusion, because the defendants failed to establish that Copeland’s statement fulfills the requirements of MRE 804(b)(3) and was sufficiently reliable that its exclusion denied the constitutional right to due process, I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Weaver, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

 US Const, Am XIV.

 Rivera v Illinois Dep’t of Corrections, 915 F2d 280, 281-282 (CA 7, 1990) (the declarant confessed that he alone had beaten decedent; there was no suggestion of any motive to exculpate or that the declarant might simply have failed to notice; due process was violated by the trial court’s exclusion of the confession for no better reason than that it was hearsay).

 While a different question might be presented had Copeland said he alone stabbed the victim, Copeland’s incentive not to make a blame-shifting assertion does not logically lend any credibility to separate, even though closely associated assertions. Watkins at 639.

 Because hiring a prostitute negated rape and using mescaline negated his mental state, neither of these admissions are in context truly inculpatory. As the court observed in dictum in United States v Evans, 635 F2d 1125 (CA 4, 1980), when a statement technically constitutes a confession, but, in actuality, its principal and perhaps only function is to support a defense against a charge of a more serious crime, “in reality, looked at in its totality, the statement is one for the declarant’s penal interest, not against." (Emphasis in the original.)

 Moreover, like the declarant in Carson who sought to protect a brother or fellow gang member, Copeland’s asserted lack of knowledge was likely motivated by a desire to protect his friends.

 In context, it is clear that Copeland was avoiding blame:
Q. You knew exactly what you were doing when you pulled the knife out and stabbed the woman, is that correct?
A. I was in a different state of mind. I looked at a tree and could taste the color of the tree.

 It bears repeating in analysis of the question whether Copeland’s state of mind was exculpatory of malice on the part of the codefendants that the focus of the inquiry is Copeland’s excuse for why he killed the victim. While the jury did not hear Copeland’s statement, it did receive through other evidence the substance of his confession, including that he was the stabber. The only portion of Copeland’s statement that the jury did not learn through other means was that he stabbed the victim because he thought she was Spooner.

 The Court inischaracterizes the theories of liability. The felony-murder charge premised on aiding and abetting did not require a “thought-out plan to rape, rob, and then kill the victim.” Ante at 292. Aiding and abetting a felony is felony murder if malice can be inferred from all the circumstances. People v Aaron, supra. The crimes underlying the felony-murder charge were larceny and criminal sexual conduct. The victim was found without money, jewelry, or clothing. The jury also was instructed on second-degree murder.

 Barrera and Musail must have been found either to have intended to kill, intended to cause great bodily harm, or wilfully and wantonly disregarded the likelihood that the natural tendency of their behavior was to cause death or great bodily harm. Under Aaron, the jury may infer these states of mind from “[t]he facts and circumstances involved in the perpetration of [the] felony . . . ."Id. at 728.

 Neither criminal sexual conduct nor second-degree murder are specific-intent crimes.

 The Court correctly observes that in Wisconsin, felony murder does not require proof of any mental state. State v Oimen, 184 Wis 2d 423; 516 NW2d 399 (1994). This is a different question than whether a codefendant is chargeable with felony murder when a co-felon has killed the intended felony victim. Michigan’s party to a crime statute, MCL 767.39; MSA 28.979, like that of Wisconsin, abolishes the distinction between principals and accessories. Wis Stat Ann 939.05, Wisconsin’s statute, in terms provides responsibility for any other crime “which under the circumstances is a natural and probable consequence of the intended crime.”

 Copeland did not say that he “spontaneously” stabbed the victim. Copeland said that he did not discuss with Mark, Fred, and Mike that they were going to rape and kill the woman before arriving at the park- — statements which, because they exculpate Copeland, are inadmissible under MRE 804(b)(3).

 First-degree felony murder is simply second-degree murder that occurred in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a felony, and thus is statutorily elevated to murder in the first degree. Aaron, supra at 730, 734. Intent to kill is but one of the possible mental states sufficient to establish the malice element of second-degree murder. “While the intent to kill satisfies the malice requirement, it is not a necessary element of second-degree murder.” Langworthy, supra at 650. If the perpetrator possesses the intent to kill, that does not transform second-degree murder into specific-intent crime. Id. at 651. Moreover, in a case involving multiple participants, any of the participants may possess any of the mental states that compromise malice and satisfy the mens rea element of second-degree murder.

 Copeland never told the officer that Barrera and Musall did not stab the victim.

 Miranda v Arizona, 384 US 436; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966).

 See, e.g., Turpin, supra at 1397, which observed that the declarant’s statement was unreliable in part because it was made to a police interrogator and was not a spontaneous utterance to a close acquaintance.

 To the extent that the Court concludes that MRE 804(b)(3) “merely requires that the statement be probative against the declarant,” ante at 282, it is in error. Garcia correctly notes that once the evidence is determined admissible, its weight is for the jury. The statement is consistent with the advisory committee’s admonition that
*327[w]hen the statement is offered by the accused by way of exculpation, the resulting situation is not adapted to control by rulings as to the weight of the evidence, and hence the provision is cast in terms of a requirement preliminary to admissibility. [Notes of Advisory Committee on Proposed Rules, 28 USCA, FRE 804, p 448.]