Court Opinion

ID: 9667902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:57:27.40188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:41.410312
License: Public Domain

Coleman, J.
(dissenting). Belated testimony concerning an alleged confession of recently deceased Chester Blake was not of trustworthy calibre and therefore was properly excluded. Under the facts of this case, the judge did not abuse his discretion by denying admissibility of an "admission against penal interest”. The conviction should be affirmed.
We agree that alleged confessions of a deceased person should be admitted under circumstances evincing reliability, but would guard against an absolute rule such as advocated by Justice Levin which could allow one friendly to defendant to place uncorroborated words of confession into the mouth of any safely departed person.
Defendant was convicted of murdering Robert Stevens. Stevens and a friend, Harold Napora, had been looking for women. They met a man identified as Edwards who offered to get them one. He returned with Betty King who refused employment.
Betty King made a statement before trial. She said Edwards (known to her as Cutie) had fired the shots:
"Q: Was there any conversation between you and Cutie after this shooting took place?
"A: He told me to be quiet about it. He said, 'Betty, you are going to talk? If you tell it, you going to be involved, too. Don’t you tell it.’ And I was scared because I was there. That’s why I was afraid.”
*569Nevertheless, at trial, Betty King said she had seen the shooting but that Chester Blake (known to her as Chester Junior) had done the shooting. She testified that Chester Blake had paid her to lie in the pretrial statement.
During the investigation, Betty King had identified a picture of Ernest Edwards as being the man who shot Stevens. She now testified that the police had badgered her into it.
Although Blake died before the preliminary examination, she did not identify him then because they were very close, she said. Earlier, however, she had said she did not "know Chester Junior, really, well, you know”.
Defendant was apprehended and identified by Napora during a lineup. Edwards then made a statement. He said that after Betty King refused the two men, Stevens started cursing:
"And so — I don’t know. When he was going to get out of the truck, I pulled the gun out. I didn’t point it at him. When he got back in, he had his hand in his sweater pocket, in his left sweater pocket, and I pointed the gun at him then and that’s when the truck started to pull off and Betty, she hit my hand, tried to grab the gun out of my hand to stop me from shooting and the gun went off and it scared me and I shot again.”
Edwards said he got the gun from Irvin Johnson, who had bought it from Chester Blake.
However, during the trial, defendant testified and denied shooting Stevens. He then said that after leaving Napora and Stevens, he had bought the pistol not from Irvin Johnson, but from Chester Blake. He said the pretrial statement was a confused attempt to avoid prosecution for murder.
Howard Edwards, defendant’s brother, said he was in Skip’s Crap House on April 23rd. He said *570Chester Blake came in about the time the shooting occurred and pawned a gun to Ernest for $10. Howard and Irvin Johnson said Blake had first tried to sell the pistol to Johnson. The gun had by this time been identified as the murder weapon.
The next defense witness, John Longuemire, said he was "pretty close” to and a "very good friend” of Chester Blake, who had died before the Edwards’ trial. He also knew defendant.
John Longuemire had been in the jail where defendant was awaiting trial. They talked about the murder, he said. Although Chester Blake had supposedly confessed his guilt to Longuemire,1 it was not reported to the police or mentioned to the defendant until Blake was dead. Longuemire supposedly wrote a statement at defendant’s request while they were in jail, but this statement was never given to the police.
Longuemire’s uncorroborated2 testimony about Blake’s alleged confession was properly rejected as hearsay and becomes the principal issue in controversy. All of the other testimony was admitted for jury consideration.
It is agreed that declarations against penal interest may be admitted despite being hearsay. However, Justice Levin fashions Wigmore’s position opposing the automatic exclusion of those statements into a rule requiring admission of all *571such statements. The testimony should neither be rejected nor admitted indiscriminately. Statements against penal interest should be admitted if two criteria suggested by Wigmore are met: "first, a necessity for resorting to hearsay * * * and, secondly, a circumstantial probability of trustworthiness”, such as corroboration. 5 Wigmore, § 1455, p 324.
Under this test, there was no error in rejecting John Longuemire’s testimony concerning the alleged confession.3 There was no corroboration of the confession. There was no showing that the circumstances of the confession made it trustworthy.
The defense was that Chester Blake had shot Stevens. Blake was not identified as the murderer until after he was dead. Defendant had made a confession which he denied at trial. Betty King changed her testimony after the preliminary examination and pretrial statement to incriminate *572the deceased Blake. Defendant’s brother and a friend (who was in jail with défendant) testified that Blake sold the pistol to defendant at a time shortly after the shooting. (Defendant earlier had said that he obtained it from Irvin Johnson who had bought it from Chester Blake.) This testimony was admitted into evidence and argued to the jury as proof of defendant’s innocence. The jury weighed this testimony and found it wanting.
As to Longuemire’s testimony, the defense did not support the authenticity of Blake’s alleged confession.4 This is not a case where circumstances require that the statement be admitted.5 We do not have a written confession or a situation where the authorities obtained contradictory confessions.6 I did not find the "circumstantial possibility of trustworthiness” for admission of the testimony.7
It must be stressed that defendant had a fair trial. His witnesses were heard, his defense was argued.
The trial judge properly excluded John Longuemire’s testimony about Chester Blake’s "confession”. It did not have the "circumstantial probability of trustworthiness”. The verdict should be affirmed.
Fitzgerald, J., concurred with Coleman, J.

 When asked at trial whether he knew who "killed or shot a man on 5th Street between Federal and Lapeer on the night of April the ' 23[rd], 1971,” Longuemire said:
"A. Yes, I do.
"Q. And who did that?
’A. Chester Blake.
"Q. Chester Junior?
"A. Yes.
”Q. And how do you know that Chester Junior did that?
"A Well, he told me.”

 Compare Hines v Commonwealth, 136 Va 728; 117 SE 843 (1923).

 The trial judge’s rejection of the testimony was corect under Michigan law. GCR 1963, 601 says "rules of evidence shall be according to the common law except as modified by statute or court rule”. In People v Sartori, 168 Mich 308; 134 NW 200 (1912), a defense witness had discussed the murder with a man named Sacciucci. This included talk about who did the killing:
"He was then asked for the conversation, which was objected to as hearsay, and the objection was sustained. The ruling was correct. Whether Sacciucci would have answered that he saw some one else commit the murder, or whether, as the record indicates was expected, he would say that Sacciucci told him that he himself committed the murder would be alike hearsay. The acts of Sacciucci having some relation to the crime and tending to show that he committed it instead of Sartori were competent and were admitted; his declarations, statements, and admissions not part of the res gestae were not competent.” Sacciucci had apparently left the country and was unavailable. Also see People v Stevens, 47 Mich 411; 11 NW 220 (1882) (one defendant’s confession hearsay as to the other defendant), People v Aikin, 66 Mich 460; 33 NW 821 (1887) (statements of deceased victim hearsay), People v Fritch, 170 Mich 258; 136 NW 493 (1912) (statement of deceased victim hearsay) and People v Cutler, 197 Mich 6; 163 NW 493 (1917) (statements of deceased victim hearsay but harmless as it strengthened defendant’s case).

 Compare Sutter v Easterly, 354 Mo 282; 189 SW 2d 284 (1945).

 Compare People v Lettrich, 413 Ill 172; 108 NE 2d 488 (1952).

 Compare Thomas v State, 186 Md 446; 47 A2d 43 (1946).

 See Deike v Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co, 3 Ariz App 430; 415 P2d 145 (1966).