concluding that mere opportunity and ability to commit murder to which declarant confessed was not clearly corroborative of confession “but merely consistent with it” where statement did not contain facts that only the murderer could have known and where there was no other evidence linking declarant to the crime
How later courts described this case
- concluding that mere opportunity and ability to commit murder to which declarant confessed was not clearly corroborative of confession “but merely consistent with it” where statement did not contain facts that only the murderer could have known and where there was no other evidence linking declarant to the crime
- concluding that declarant being out of his cell—meaning declarant had the opportunity and ability to commit the murder to which he confessed—was merely consistent with tlie confession (not clearly corroborative) because declarant’s statement did not show unique knowledge of the murder
- concluding that mere opportunity and ability to commit crime to which hearsay declarant confessed is insufficient corroboration where the statement does not contain facts that only the perpetrator would have known and there was a lack of other evidence linking declarant to the crime
- concluding that trial judge’s *922 misstatements to a witness about the potential for a perjury prosecution were not the “decisive factor in [the witness’s] decision not to testify” and any error was therefore harmless (emphasis added)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
ON PETITIONS FOR REHEARING
Reynosa argues that we have changed our test for plain error. We have not. Our formulation is the equivalent of that in the cases Reynosa cites, notably United States v. Jackson, 569 F.2d 1003, 1010 (7th Cir.1978), where this court said that it must “determine whether the instructional mistake had a probable impact on the jury’s finding that the defendant was guilty,” and concluded that it was “very unlikely” that it had. The same is true here; for the reasons stated in our opinion we are convinced that it is very unlikely that Reynosa would have been acquitted even if the district judge had not given the confusing instruction.