Court Opinion

ID: 9748924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:17:42.949772+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:40.698150
License: Public Domain

WOMACK, J.,
filed a concurring opinion in which, JOHNSON, J., joined.
I join the judgment of the Court.
I agree that the admission of the hearsay statement of Chris Dewberry to Mark Bilfifano did not violate the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, as the appellant argues in point of error eight. I base my conclusion on the statement’s particularized guarantees of trustworthiness. I do not agree that the reliability of this statement can be analogized to the reliability factors in White v. Illinois, 502 U.S. 346, 112 S.Ct. 736 (1992), see ante at 753, or that the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest is firmly rooted, see ante at 753.
I also believe that, if the statement were inadmissible, the error in its admission would be harmless. The only fact in this declarant’s statement to Bilfafano that was not in his other statements, which were admitted without a constitutional objection, was that “they had to tie him up.”