State v. Hallum

Citation585 N.W.2d 249
Decision Date21 October 1998
Docket NumberNo. 97-370,97-370
PartiesSTATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Matthew HALLUM, Appellant.
CourtUnited States State Supreme Court of Iowa

Linda Del Gallo, State Appellate Defender, and John P. Messina, Assistant State Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Julie H. Brown, Assistant Attorney General, Thomas S. Mullin, County Attorney, and Mark Campbell, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

Considered by McGIVERIN, C.J., and CARTER, LAVORATO, NEUMAN, and TERNUS, JJ.

TERNUS, Justice.

Defendant, Matthew Hallum, appeals his criminal convictions claiming the trial court's admission of the videotaped, narrative statement of Hallum's accomplice violated the ban on hearsay evidence and Hallum's rights under the Confrontation Clause. See U.S. Const. amend. VI; Iowa R. Evid. 802. Hallum also alleges ineffective assistance of trial counsel based on his attorney's stipulation to the admission of certain assertions contained in the narrative statement. Finding no reversible error, we affirm.

I. Factual Background.

In the early morning hours of February 26, 1993, Matthew Hallum and his half-brother, Carlos Medina, helped Justin Cloud push his car out of the snow. 1 Cloud and his friend, Tanya Rubottom, invited the brothers back to Cloud's apartment for drinks. They drank until the early hours of the morning.

The events occurring next were related to the jury by Cloud, who testified at trial, and Medina, whose videotaped statement was admitted at trial. After Rubottom and Cloud had retired to the bedroom, Rubottom decided to return to the living room to tell Hallum and Medina to leave. Cloud followed her a few minutes later and discovered Hallum and Medina molesting Rubottom. Hallum and Medina then beat Cloud and tied his hands behind his back with electrical cord. While Cloud "played dead," he could hear the brothers raping Rubottom and then he heard her gagging. Medina similarly stated that after beating and tying up Cloud, he and his brother had oral, anal and vaginal intercourse with Rubottom and then strangled her with a bandanna worn by Hallum.

After Hallum and Medina left, Cloud went to another apartment, screaming hysterically that "Indians" had broken into his apartment, had killed his "wife," and had beaten him. (Hallum and Medina are Native Americans.) Clouds hands were still tied behind his back and his face was bruised and beaten. When the police arrived in response to the neighbor's call, Cloud was still hysterical and appeared intoxicated. He first told the police that he had killed Rubottom, but then changed his story and said some "Indians" had murdered her.

Hallum's fingerprints were found at the scene. An autopsy confirmed that Rubottom had been sexually assaulted orally, anally and vaginally, but there was insufficient DNA material to identify the perpetrators. The autopsy also confirmed that Rubottom died of ligature strangulation.

II. District Court Proceedings.

A. Investigation and charge. Law enforcement officials questioned Medina on February 26 and videotaped the interview. After being given a Miranda warning, Medina admitted that he and Hallum assaulted Cloud, sexually assaulted Rubottom, and then killed Rubottom. The State charged Hallum with first-degree sexual assault, see Iowa Code §§ 709.1, .2 (1993), first-degree murder, see id. §§ 707.1, .2, and attempted murder, see id. § 707.11.

B. Pretrial rulings. In a pretrial ruling and after an evidentiary hearing, the district court, District Judge Dewie J. Gaul, held that certain portions of Medina's statement were admissible under Iowa Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3) (declaration against penal interest) and Iowa Rule of Evidence 804(b)(5) (residual hearsay exception). The court also held admission of these declarations did not violate Hallum's confrontation rights.

The State planned to call Medina as a witness at trial, but Medina refused to testify even after the State granted him immunity and even after the court jailed him for contempt. Not only did Medina refuse to testify, he also recanted his videotaped statement. The State then sought a pretrial ruling that Medina's entire statement was admissible on the basis that Hallum had waived any objection to the statement under the hearsay rule and the Confrontation Clause by procuring his brother's unavailability. The State claimed correspondence between Hallum and Medina and between Hallum and the brothers' mother showed that Hallum had encouraged Medina not to testify at Hallum's trial. The State also claimed certain declarations from the statement were admissible under rules 804(b)(3) and 804(b)(5). Hallum's attorney stipulated that the specific declarations identified by the State were admissible, but objected to admission of the balance of the statement. After another evidentiary hearing, the trial court, District Judge Phillip S. Dandos, admitted the entire videotaped statement given by Medina, ruling that Hallum had waived any objection by procuring his brother's unavailability.

C. Trial. The case then proceeded to trial before Judge Gaul. Hallum's defense at trial was that Cloud had murdered Rubottom. Hallum admitted being at Cloud's apartment that night, but claimed that Rubottom was alive when he and his brother left early on the morning of February 26.

Prior to airing the videotape of Medina's statement, the court informed the jury that Medina refused to testify even though he was not subject to prosecution and that he now claimed the statement he gave to the police was not true. The jury found Hallum guilty of first-degree murder, see Iowa Code §§ 707.1, .2, first-degree sexual assault, see id. §§ 709.1, .2, and assault with intent to commit serious injury, see id. §§ 708.1, .2.

The only issue on appeal is the propriety of the court's decision to admit Medina's videotaped statement. Because we find no ground for reversal based on the hearsay ban or the Confrontation Clause, we do not address the State's claim that Hallum waived any objections to the statement by his alleged procurement of Medina's unavailability.

III. Hearsay Exception for Statement Against Penal Interest.

A. Standard of review. We have on prior occasions reviewed the admission of

hearsay evidence for abuse of discretion. See, e.g., State v. Veal, 564 N.W.2d 797, 807-08 (Iowa 1997); State v. Weaver, 554 N.W.2d 240, 247 (Iowa 1996). Recently, however, we stated such rulings should be reviewed for correction of errors of law. See State v. Ross, 573 N.W.2d 906, 910 (Iowa 1998). We adhere to our decision in Ross and review the trial court's admission of Medina's statement for correction of errors of law.

B. Requirements for exception. Iowa Rule of Evidence 804(b)(3) sets forth an exception to the general ban on hearsay evidence:

A statement which was at the time of its making so far contrary to the declarant's pecuniary or proprietary interest, or so far tended to subject him to civil or criminal liability, ... that a reasonable man in his position would not have made the statement unless he believed it to be true. A statement tending to expose the declarant to criminal liability and offered to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.

This exception requires that the declarant be unavailable, a fact not disputed in the case before us. See Iowa R. Evid. 804(a)(2) (defining unavailability of a witness to include one who "persists in refusing to testify concerning the subject matter of his statement despite an order of the court to do so").

Hallum urges this court to require a showing that "corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement when the statement" tends to implicate an accused, which is the situation here. See Iowa R. Evid. 804(b)(3). The rule itself, however, imposes such a requirement only when the statement exculpates the accused. See id. Well-established rules of statutory construction prevent us from adding a requirement to the rule that is clearly not found in the language of the rule itself. See State v. Eames, 565 N.W.2d 323, 327 (Iowa 1997) (holding court will not read an additional requirement into statute under guise of statutory construction); In re Estate of Voss, 553 N.W.2d 878, 880 (Iowa 1996) ("When the text of a statute is plain and its meaning clear, we will not search for a meaning beyond the express terms of the statute....").

Our focus, then, is on whether the evidence admitted by the trial court "so far tended to subject [Medina] to ... criminal liability ... that a reasonable man in his position would not have made the statement[s] unless he believed they were true." Iowa R. Evid. 804(b)(3). In applying this standard, we examine each declaration individually to determine whether it is self-inculpatory. See Williamson v. United States, 512 U.S. 594, 599-601, 114 S.Ct. 2431, 2434-35, 129 L.Ed.2d 476, 481 (1994) (holding under identical federal rule of evidence that each declaration must be "individually self-inculpatory"). The assertions contained in Medina's statement can be separated into three categories for purposes of our discussion: (1) those that were inculpatory only of Medina; (2) those that were equally inculpatory of Medina and Hallum; and (3) those that were inculpatory only of Hallum. We will consider the admissibility of each category separately.

C. Admissibility of declarations implicating only Medina. In interpreting the federal counterpart to rule 804(b)(3), the United States Supreme Court has stated that "even the confessions of arrested accomplices may be admissible if they are truly self-inculpatory, rather than merely attempts to shift blame or curry favor." Id. at 603, 114 S.Ct. at 2436, 129 L.Ed.2d at 485; cf. State v. Veal, 564 N.W.2d 797, 808 (Iowa 1997) (holding "statements admitting to a lesser offense are [not] against [penal] interest when offered to defend against a more serious crime"). Thus,...

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