Court Opinion

ID: 9788872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:21:25.233181+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:16.915439
License: Public Domain

FRANCHINI, Justice (dissenting). {15} I respectfully dissent. {16} Adam Montoya did not testify at trial and therefore was not subject to cross-examination. However, over objection, Robert Aragon testified that Montoya told him that Defendant instructed Montoya to “leave [the victim] at the river.” Montoya’s statement to Aragon was hearsay and could not be admitted unless, pursuant to Rule 11-804(B)(3) NMRA 2002, it “so far tended to subject [Montoya] to ... criminal liability ... that a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true.” It is my opinion that because Montoya’s statement attempted to shift blame from himself to Defendant, it was more exculpatory than inculpatory, and therefore lacked sufficient reliability to exempt it from the hearsay rule. {17} Furthermore, I agree with Defendant that the United States Supreme Court, in a plurality opinion, has expressed distrust for precisely this sort of evidence. Lilly v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 131, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999). In Lilly, the Court recognized that “accomplices’ confessions that incriminate defendants” are “presumptively unreliable.” Id. See also Denny v. Gudmanson, 252 F.3d 896, 903 (7th Cir.2001) (describing “a confession that shifts or spreads blame from the declarant to incriminate co-criminals” as the type of statement “whose reliability is particularly suspect”). The record is devoid of other indications of reliability that would overcome my initial distrust. It is my opinion that the trial court’s admission of this evidence without the possibility of cross-examination violates the confrontation clauses of both the United States and New Mexico constitutions. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, I would reverse the Court of Appeals and remand for a new trial on one count of false imprisonment.