Court Opinion

ID: 9461240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:09:20.347271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:57.574128
License: Public Domain

WISDOM, Circuit Judge,
with whom GOLDBERG, GODBOLD, SIMPSON and RONEY, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
I reaffirm the views expressed in the panel opinion. 5 Cir., 493 F.2d 923. I *863join in my brother Thornberry’s dissenting opinion. I add a few words of my own because the majority opinion shows an egregious misunderstanding of the Confrontation Clause.
The only links between Park and the murder are the hearsay statements Pinion and Worley are supposed to have made to Seay. The majority opinion blithely dismisses the significance of this fact in one paragraph with a quick wave of the pen:
“As to this, Seay was subjected to the most rigorous and .searching cross-examination. This is exactly what the Confrontation Clause guarantees.”
Incredible! Of course, what the Confrontation Clause guarantees is Park’s right to examine Pinion and Worley— not just Seay.
Continuing on its errant way, the majority states:
“The issue was whether Pinion and Worley had made the statements. Seay was the only witness who swore that they had. He was cross-examined at length and in detail. That puts an end to the confrontation argument in this case.”
But the issue was not whether Pinion and Worley had made the statements. They may have done so. They may have wished to lighten their burden by shifting the heaviest part of it to someone else; Park was a logical choice. The issue was the truth or falsity of their statements. Park was entitled to confront these accusers. The United States Constitution guarantees him this right, regardless of the willingness of Georgia courts to admit the statements by attenuating the co-conspirator exception to the bar against hearsay.
The utility of an exception to the rule against hearsay depends on the reliability of the hearsay and the need for such evidence. The reliability of a co-conspirator’s out-of-court statement is shaky at best. It is shakier when the only conspiracy proved was to commit a misdemeanor, here to sell liquor in a dry county. To allow Park to be found guilty of murder on the crucial, devastating out-of-court statements of two men who were never brought into court to testify, although they were in prison and therefore available to testify, shocks me. I doubt that this could happen in any other civilized country. I had thought that it could not happen here.