Court Opinion

ID: 9469697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:46:57.204798+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:31.173218
License: Public Domain

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
On the discretion of the district judge, the opinion of Judge Bryan rests. On the present state of the law as it applies to the particular case before us, I find myself, albeit not without substantial misgiving, obliged to concur.
Nevertheless, I perceive a useful purpose for future cases in addressing one troubling aspect. It is evident that a basis may be erected for finding the hearsay statements of Helena Stoeckley untrustworthy. Given the wide discretion vested in the trial judge, we should not fault Judge Dupree to the extent of reversing.1 Nevertheless, in view of the issues involved, and the virtually unique aspects of the surrounding circumstances, had I been the trial judge, I would have exercised the wide discretion conferred on him to allow the testimony to come in. My preference derives from my belief that, if the jury may be trusted with ultimate resolution of the factual issues, it should not be denied the opportunity of obtaining a rounded picture, necessary for resolution of the large questions, by the withholding of collateral testimony consistent with and basic to the defendant’s principal exculpatory contention. If such evidence was not persuasive, which is what the government essentially contends in saying that it was untrustworthy, the jury, with very great probability, would not have been misled by it.
In deciding whether a statement against interest should be admitted under the exception to the hearsay rule, the court must determine whether the “corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.” F.R.Evid. 804(b)(3). The question is whether the statement is believable,2 that is to say appears to have *235been clearly within the competence of the witness to observe, without a demonstrable intention or disposition to prevaricate. See United States v. Atkins, 558 F.2d 133, 135-136 (3d Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 929, 98 S.Ct. 416, 54 L.Ed.2d 289 (1977). There the district judge had excluded an overheard acknowledgment of guilt by someone other than the defendant because the witness was a minor, who had not completed high school, was unemployed, and was on welfare. The allegedly overheard conversation occurred outside a bar on a crowded street corner and was deemed unreliable by the district judge. In reversing, the Third Circuit emphasized that immediately after the witness overheard the declarant confess murder she saw parts of a rifle or shotgun in his car trunk, promptly told the story to the victim’s family and accompanied them to the police station.
Credibility can be established in various ways. Considerations include the circumstances surrounding the statements, United States v. Atkins, supra, and the absence of motivation on the part of the declarant to fabricate, United States v. Thomas, 571 F.2d 285, 290 (5th Cir. 1978) (“. . . the possibility of fabrication which is the rationale of the corroboration requirement, is slight. Weeks had no motive to falsify,” he being a co-defendant who had pleaded not guilty). Another factor deserving recognition is that of the general societal frame of reference. The latter can provide increased support for the believability of statements such as the ones now at issue. The likelihood of the truth of a seemingly outrageous story grows when an appreciation of current events is applied to the known facts and circumstances of a given case.
The defense of a marauding, drug-crazed purposeless group of homicidal maniacs is one which, absent the events surrounding the behavior of Charles Manson and the excruciating horror of the indescribably base murder of Sharon Tate, would have been dismissed as so incredible as to merit no serious attention. All that changed with the advent of Manson. Thereafter the possibility of such an occurrence, while still macabre, was considerably enhanced. The evidence, in my humble judgment, tended to show an environment in the vicinity of the military base where MacDonald was stationed in which persons might indeed emulate Manson or independently behave in such a fashion. Helena Stoeckley was shown to be a person of no fixed regularity of life, roaming the streets nocturnally at or about the time of the crimes, dressing in a bizarre fashion, and capable of so short-circuiting her mental processes through an indiscriminate taking of drugs that (a) she could well accept her presence and, to some extent, her involvement in the MacDonald murders and (b) she could become so separated from reality that, on the fatal evening, she was ripe for persuasion to participate.
It should be emphasized that the condition on admissibility of corroborating circumstances indicating trustworthiness represents an accommodation between concern about third party confessions and their high potential for fabrication, on the one hand, and awareness of the enhancement of reliability flowing from the exposure to punishment for crime for the confessing declarant, on the other. Notes of the Advisory Committee on the Proposed Federal Rules of Evidence. Rule 804(b) Exception (3): “The requirement of corroboration should be construed in such a manner as to effectuate its purpose of circumventing fabrication.” The reason prompting Congress to add the corroboration provision to F.R.Evid. 804(b)(3) derived from the “special dangers of a trumped-up confession by a professional criminal or some person with a strong motive to lie.” 4 Weinstein’s Evidence H 804(b)(3)[03], at 804-103.
The record in the case satisfies me that, among the possible motivations leading to the statements of Helena Stoeckley, fabrication was not a likely one. The matter of what constitutes corroborating circumstances which clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement was left for judicial (i.e. ease-by-case) development. 11 Moore’s Federal Practice § 804.06(3)[2], at VIII-281. “It is clear that the standard for corroboration must not be too high.” Id. at VIII-283.
*236A factor of corroboration cited by Justice Holmes in his famous dissent in Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 243, 277, 33 S.Ct. 449, 461, 57 L.Ed. 820 (1913) was “that there be no connection between declarant and accused.” 4 Weinstein’s Evidence H 804-104, n.6. MacDonald and Stoeckley were not in any way acquainted.
Weinstein additionally has this to say: The court should only ask for sufficient corroboration to “clearly” permit a reasonable man to believe that the statement might have been made in good faith and that it could be true. If, for example, the proof is undisputed that the person confessing to a shooting could not have been at the scene of the crime because he was in prison, it will be excluded. But if there is evidence that he was near the scene and had some motive or background connecting him with the crime that should suffice.
Id. 804-104-05. But cf. Lowery v. State of Maryland, 401 F.Supp. 604, 607 (D.Md.1975), aff’d without published opinion, 532 F.2d 750 (4th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 919, 97 S.Ct. 312, 50 L.Ed.2d 285 (1976).
For all those considerations, my view is that the testimony should have been admitted. But it would read out of the law the concept of trial court discretion were courts of appeals to label as “abuse of discretion” any action by a district court with which the appellate court disagrees. Accordingly, I do not regard it proper to dissent.
I conclude with the observation that the case provokes a strong uneasiness in me. The crimes were base and horrid, and whoever committed them richly deserves severe punishment. As Judge Bryan has pointed out, the evidence was sufficient to sustain the findings of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Still, the way in which a finding of guilt is reached is, in our enduring system of law, at least as important as the finding of guilt itself. I believe MacDonald would have had a fairer trial if the Stoeckley related testimony had been admitted. In the end, however, I am not prepared to find an abuse of discretion by the district court, and so concur.

. Cf. United States v. Poland, 659 F.2d 884, 895 (9th Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1059, 102 S.Ct. 611, 70 L.Ed.2d 598 (1981).

. Note that the test is not whether the district judge is satisfied that the statement is actually true as to the fact it is adduced to prove. Responsibility for that determination rests with the jury, as fact finder, not with the judge. The rule is not intended to allow the trial judge to admit only that evidence which satisfies him or conforms to his views as to what the disposition of the case should be. Cf. 4 Weinstein’s Evidence j] 804(b)(3)[03] and the pungent comments relative to a trial judge’s assessment of trustworthiness of the witness, rather than of the declarant: “The corroboration requirement should not be used as a means of usurping the jury’s function.”