Taggart v. State

• Decision Date: 30 November 1978
• Docket Number: No. 1276S459,1276S459
• Citation: 269 Ind. 667,382 N.E.2d 916
• Parties: Robert W. TAGGART, Sr., Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 916

382 N.E.2d 916

269 Ind. 667

Robert W. TAGGART, Sr., Appellant, v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee.

No. 1276S459.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

Nov. 30, 1978.

Richard W. Maroc, Hammond, for appellant.

Theodore L. Sendak, Atty. Gen., Wesley T. Wilson, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

PIVARNIK, Justice.

Appellant Taggart was convicted of two counts of murder at the conclusion of a jury trial, in the Jasper Circuit Court, on September 3, 1976. For the murder of Ivan Trajkovich, he was convicted of first-degree murder in the perpetration of a robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment. For the murder of Lillian Trajkovich, he was also convicted of first-degree murder in the perpetration of a robbery and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The sole issue presented for our review is whether a confession as to the murders in question, made by one William McCall, was erroneously excluded from evidence.

The facts necessary for a resolution of this issue are as follows. A typewritten statement, wherein William McCall confessed to the murders in question, and exonerated and exculpated appellant's involvement, was prevented from being introduced into evidence at trial. The court granted a motion in limine made by the state in relation to this statement. Further, oral testimony of two state's witnesses, regarding the statement, was prevented from being introduced into evidence. State's witness James Slagley was prevented from being cross-examined regarding how McCall's statement originated. Another state's witness, Joyce Harris, was prevented from testifying regarding admissions made to her, by McCall, about both the authorship of the statement and of McCall's ill will toward the decedents. After the state rested its case, appellant called William McCall as a witness. He was then examined outside the presence of the jury. In response to each question asked by appellant, McCall pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Appellant then restated all offers to prove, regarding McCall's confession and the other testimony relating to it.

According to appellant's offer to prove, the statement in question purported to be by William McCall, in which McCall acknowledged himself to be the instigator of the double murder and declared that appellant had no part in it. The statement, including its signature, was typewritten. James Slagley, son-in-law of the appellant, testified that the original statement was brought to him in prison by one King Smith. Smith purportedly then stated that McCall would sign the statement only if he first received five thousand dollars, and that McCall would repudiate the statement in court unless he had the money first. Slagley then made a typewritten copy of that original statement.

Appellant admits that Indiana precedent is against his claim of the admissibility of confessions by third persons. Green v. State (1900), 154 Ind. 655, 57 N.E. 637; Siple v. State (1900), 154 Ind. 647, 57 N.E. 544; Jones v. State (1878), 64 Ind. 473. These cases are in line with the common law rule that such third party confessions, or "declarations against penal interest," are inadmissible hearsay, and do not come within the hearsay exception of "declarations against pecuniary or proprietary interest." Appellant argues, however, that we should either abandon this rule, or hold that its application to the present case violates due process of law under the authority of Chambers v. Mississippi (1973), 410 U.S. 284, 93 S.Ct. 1038, 35 L.Ed.2d 297.

The Supreme Court held in Chambers that, "the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically," so as to defeat the ends of justice, thus violating the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Id., 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S.Ct. at 1049, 35 L.Ed.2d at 313. The Court explicitly, however, refused to hold that every exclusion of "declarations against penal interest" is an inherent due process violation. Id., 410 U.S. at 300, 93 S.Ct. at 1048, 35 L.Ed.2d at 311. Rather, the holding in Chambers was based on the particular facts and circumstances of the case, wherein the testimony excluded at trial "bore persuasive assurances of trustworthiness and thus was well within the basic rationale of the exception for declarations against interest." Id., 410 U.S. at 302, 93 S.Ct. at 1049, 35 L.Ed.2d at 313. These circumstances were: the statements in Chambers were made spontaneously to a close acquaintance shortly after the murder occurred; the statements were corroborated by other evidence in the case, and; the statements were unquestionably against penal interest and self-incriminating. Id., 410 U.S. at 300-1, 93 S.Ct. at 1048, 35 L.Ed.2d at 311-12. We thus believe that the holding in Chambers can be accepted within the existing common law relating to declarations against penal interest, as that common law is limited by the Chambers facts. Accord, Pitts v. State (Fla.App.1975), 307 So.2d 473, Cert. dismissed (1975), 423 U.S. 918, 96 S.Ct. 302, 46 L.Ed.2d 273; People v. Craven (1973), 54 Ill.2d 419, 299 N.E.2d 1; Commonwealth v. Carr (1977), 77 Mass.Adv.Sh. 2312, 369 N.E.2d 970; Thompson v. State (Miss.1975), 309 So.2d 533, Cert. denied (1975), 423 U.S. 924, 96 S.Ct. 266, 46 L.Ed.2d 250; Ragler v. State (1973), 18 Md.App. 671, 308 A.2d 401; State v. Gardner (1975), 13 Wash.App. 194, 534 P.2d 140.

While appellant has also fully and ably argued that we abandon the common law rule of the general inadmissibility of declarations against penal interest, we decline to follow the other jurisdictions that have so abandoned the distinction between these declarations and declarations against pecuniary interest. "Declarations against interest," generally, is always a terminology used in the context of an attempt to admit evidence that is hearsay. Cf. McGraw v. Horn (1962), 134 Ind.App. 645, 183 N.E.2d 206. With regard to third-party confessions, or "declarations against penal interest," we perceive good reasons for distrusting and disfavoring them, and for not carving out a new exception to the hearsay rule. As summarized in Ch...