Court Opinion

ID: 9488267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:40:55.784755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:47.955743
License: Public Domain

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent because I do not think that the out-of-court statements by the alleged victims in this case were admissible under Fed. R.Evid. 803(24) because they did not have “circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness” equivalent to the twenty-three specified exceptions to the hearsay rule. I agree with the court that there is no Confrontation Clause violation here because the children testified and there was an opportunity for effective cross-examination. See, e.g., Dolny v. Erickson, 32 F.3d 381, 385-86 (8th Cir.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 902, 130 L.Ed.2d 786 (1995), and United States v. Spotted War Bonnet, 933 F.2d 1471, 1473-75 (8th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1101, 112 S.Ct. 1187, 117 L.Ed.2d 429 (1992). But that does not mean, as the court seems to think, that the considerations that the Supreme Court has identified in its Confrontation Clause cases for determining the reliability of testimony have no relevance to or application in garden-variety evidence cases in which the equivalent issue is raised. In other words, I do not see why circumstances that guarantee trustworthiness are not the same as circumstances that demonstrate reliability.
None of the circumstances that the court recites convinces me that the admitted statements are any more reliable than most hearsay statements. More tellingly, some of the alleged indicia of reliability to which the court points have actually been described by the Supreme Court as characteristics that cut against the admissibility of out-of-court statements. For one thing, the fact that a child witness has used age-appropriate language was implicitly rejected as indicative of reliability in Idaho v. Wright, 497 U.S. 805, 821, 110 S.Ct. 3139, 3149, 111 L.Ed.2d 638 (1990); see also Ring v. Erickson, 983 F.2d 818, 821 (8th Cir.1993). For another, the fact that a child’s statement is corroborated *780by other evidence is irrelevant to its own reliability: In making admissibility determinations, we are supposed to consult the circumstances “surrounding the making of the statement, not corroborative evidence of the act.” Ring, 983 F.2d at 820. Nor is Dolny, 32 F.3d at 385 n. 7, to the contrary. That ease involved a Confrontation Clause challenge and the question raised was whether there had been an opportunity for effective cross-examination of the witness. The statement in that case that Wright and Ring were not applicable has to be understood, as always, in context. We were merely saying that when an out-of-court statement has been admitted pursuant to a well-recognized hearsay exception, and the child witness has testified, the only relevant inquiry was whether the defendant had had a fair chance to cross-examine. That, by hypothesis, is not our case. This evidence was not admitted pursuant to such an exception, and could not have been.
Finally, I see no difference between this case and United States v. Balfany, 965 F.2d 575, 581 (8th Cir.1992), where we held that statements like these did not meet the requirement of Fed.R.Evid. 803(24)(B) that they must be “more probative on the point for which [they are] offered than any other evidence which the proponent can procure through reasonable efforts.” The statements in this case seem to me to add nothing of any particular value to the testimony of the children themselves. Indeed, it would seem that it would be a rare case that could meet the demands of this aspect of Fed.R.Evid. 803(24) when the declarant himself or herself testifies.
Because I believe that the district court erroneously admitted significant testimony here, and because the government does not even argue, much less attempt to demonstrate, that it was harmless for the court to have done so, I would reverse. I believe that the government did not play by the rules in this case and that it is our job to see to it that it does.