holding that the trial court had not abused its discretion, even though it had erroneously considered the credibility of the in-court witness
How later courts described this case
- holding that the trial court had not abused its discretion, even though it had erroneously considered the credibility of the in-court witness
- finding that statement by convicted codefendant was only minimally against his penal interest because his appeal was unlikely to succeed
- “The alleged bad feelings between Merriweather and Satterfield ... would make Merriweather less likely to make untrue statements exculpatory of Satterfield.”
- listing circumstances that supported reliability and circumstances that detracted from reliability in that case
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*694 SNEED, Circuit Judge
(concurring in result).
The opinion of the court avoids deciding whether the untrustworthiness of a witness can be considered by the judge in determining whether to exclude a hearsay statement pursuant to the last sentence of Rule 804(b)(3), Fed.R.Evid. This was accomplished by explicitly assuming that Rosales and Barron heard Merriweather make the statements about which they testified and that their testimony accurately reflected what they heard. This assumption is not consistent with the Government’s evidence that the prison staff reported no argument between Satterfield and Merriweather which Rosales and Barron testified they overheard.
This inconsistency strongly suggests to me that we should decide, rather than avoid, the issue about which there is a split of authority within the circuits. Were we to so decide, I would hold that the trial judge in applying the last sentence of Rule 804(b)(3) could evaluate the trustworthiness of a witness to the alleged statement which tended to expose the declarant to criminal liability. This evaluation, I suggest, should be made cautiously and with full awareness of the defendant’s constitutional right to present witnesses in his behalf. Exclusion of the statement should not rest exclusively on the supposed untrustworthiness of the witnesses thereto. Such untrustworthiness should be rendered of little consequence when there exist other circumstances which tend to corroborate the statement.
On the other hand, where corroborating circumstances do exist the trustworthiness of the witnesses when such exists should be considered an additional corroborating circumstance. For this reason I would treat the assumed trustworthiness of Rosales and Barron as a corroborating circumstance to be listed with those identified by the majority.
My differences with the majority do not lead me to a result different from theirs. Like them I find Merriweather’s statement untrustworthy; unlike them, however, I believe this untrustworthiness of the statement is corroborated by what I believe to be the untrustworthiness of the witnesses, Rosales and Barron. In any event, the trial court under the circumstances of this case did not err in my view even if in fact it did believe Rosales and Barron were untrustworthy and regarded that as a circumstance indicating that Merriweather’s alleged statement was untrustworthy. Therefore, Satterfield’s conviction should be affirmed.