Court Opinion

ID: 9481941
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:35:57.806635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:40.198870
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Three black youths tried to rob a grocery store run by the Matariyeh family. A gun battle erupted. The three surviving Mata-riyehs identified Cunningham as one of the robbers. No physical evidence links Cunningham to the crime. All eyewitness testimony is problematic, given the frailties of human memory. Identification by members of other races is especially so. See Sheri Lynn Johnson, Cross-Racial Identification Errors in Criminal Cases, 69 Cornell L.Rev. 934 (1984) (collecting empirical studies); Stephanie J. Platz & Harmon M. Hoch, Cross-Racial/Ethnic Eyewitness Identification: A Field Study, 18 J. Applied Social Psychology 972 (1988). The Matariyehs had never seen the robbers before and based their identifications on brief views on a dark street at night under high stress. Two black eyewitnesses said that Cunningham did not participate but implicated Vincent Yokum, who later confessed to taking part.
This set the stage for a clash of stories at trial. Yet the court excluded Yokum’s confession as hearsay. So it was; Yokum was unwilling to inculpate himself on the stand. Perhaps Yokum’s confession was questionable, but then the Matariyehs’ identification was not infallible either. The Matariyehs initially told the police that one robber (holding a shotgun) was five to seven inches taller than the others, who wielded pistols. Cunningham and the other two persons the Matariyehs selected from photo spreads turned out to be the same height. The state court not only prevented the jury from hearing Yokum’s confession but also refused to order Yokum (then in jail) brought to court so that Michael Hudson, an employee of the Matariyehs who witnessed the events, could identify him as a robber. The twin exclusions of Yokum’s confession and Yokum’s face increase the risk that an innocent person has been convicted. Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 298-303, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 1047-50, 35 L.Ed.2d 297 (1973), and Green v. Georgia, 442 U.S. 95, 99 S.Ct. 2150, 60 L.Ed.2d 738 (1979), hold that states must allow defen*542dants to put third-party confessions before the jury, despite the hearsay rule, when necessary to assist in separating the guilty from the innocent. I believe that Chambers and Green require Illinois to give Cunningham more leeway to explore Yokum’s role.
Lee v. McCaughtry, 933 F.2d 536, 538 (7th Cir.1991), suggests that a federal court should accept the state’s resolution of arguments under Chambers. Collateral attack is not an occasion to re-balance fact-specific conclusions. Illinois does not ask us to refrain from deciding the Chambers question, however, and for good reason— the state courts botched the job. The trial judge excluded Yokum’s statement just because it was hearsay, without endeavoring to apply the Chambers standards. The Appellate Court affirmed because it believed that a declaration against penal interest is admissible only if all of the circumstances in Chambers recur. People v. Cunningham, 130 Ill.App.3d 254, 264, 85 Ill.Dec. 138, 146, 473 N.E.2d 506, 514 (1st Dist.1984). The court wrote that unless a declaration against penal interest is spontaneous, corroborated, and made to a close acquaintance shortly after the crime, and the declarant is available for cross-examination, the statement is inadmissible. That misunderstands Chambers, as Green and subsequent cases show. E.g., Rivera v. Director, Department of Corrections, 915 F.2d 280 (7th Cir.1990); Gomez v. Greer, 896 F.2d 252, 254 (7th Cir.1990). Illinois abandoned its mechanical approach to third-party confessions in People v. Bowel, 111 I11.2d 58, 67-69, 94 Ill.Dec. 748, 752-753, 488 N.E.2d 995, 999-1000 (1986), too late to do Cunningham any good.
As we have understood Chambers, the essential question is whether the confession is reliable. “How reliable must hearsay be to fit the Chambers approach? We concluded in Rivera [915 F.2d at 282], that if a confession is sturdy enough for the state to use in its own case — if it is the sort of evidence that prosecutors regularly use against defendants — then defendants are entitled to use it for their own purposes.” Lee, 933 F.2d at 537 (emphasis in original). Yokum confessed to two attorneys and an investigator representing Cunningham. Yokum knew that the persons to whom he was speaking represented interests adverse to his; he was in custody and readily available if the state should decide to prosecute him. His was a declaration against penal interest with the customary indicia of reliability. Yokum did more than take responsibility. He described the gun battle in detail, adding the names, clothing, and armament of the aggressors. Hudson was ready to corroborate Yokum’s statement by identifying Yokum, and the two men Yo-kum named as confederates, at trial as the robbers. Bernard Merritt added support for Yokum’s statement. Merritt, who saw the events from 80 feet away, recognized one of the assailants as Floyd Murray, a thug known as “Main”, and did not know the others; Merritt was certain that Cunningham, whom he did know, was not among the three. Yokum recounted that his accomplices included a Floyd called “Main”. Yokum’s formal, detailed admission is the sort of statement police regularly obtain from suspects, and prosecutors regularly use against defendants.
As my colleagues observe, the prosecutor could have undermined Yokum’s statement. Yokum kept mum for 17 months after the gun battle. He spoke eight days after receiving a visit in prison from Kevin Wallace, one of the defendants, who asked Yokum to take responsibility. Yokum found Wallace’s inveiglement unwelcome and reported the encounter to the state’s attorney. Hudson was not the most cooperative of witnesses immediately after the crime; perhaps he was trying to protect Cunningham and the other defendants out of friendship or fear. Yet for all this Yo-kum’s confession retains vitality. Many suspects confess to the police only after repeated inquiries and appeals to their self-interest. Confessions do not become inadmissible because the speakers may have had motives other than remorse. Anyway, what did Wallace say to Yokum? Was Wallace appealing to Yokum’s conscience, or to his health? That Cunningham and Wallace belong to the El Rukns, a vicious gang, suggests the latter, but we do not *543know. Illinois did not think this mattered; it does. Yokum has never repudiated the confession or attributed it to pressure from the defendants. Yokum invoked the fifth amendment when declining to testify for the defendants, a step necessary only if Yokum believes that his testimony would have been inculpatory. Any testimony that would have inculpated Yokum would have exculpated Cunningham.
Convictions based on eyewitness identification are acceptable not because we are sure that eyewitnesses are right, but because the alternative would immunize too many guilty persons. When cross-race eyewitness identification alone supports a prosecution, it is especially important to admit other evidence that bears on the reliability of that identification. Yokum’s confession, although less powerful than one given to police immediately after the crime, is reliable enough to assist the jury in evaluating the Matariyehs’ identifications. Chambers, Green, and our own cases required Illinois to let the jury have this information. Trial without it created an unacceptable risk of convicting the innocent.