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State v. Torres12/3/1998
ate v. Julian, No. C-970538, 1998 WL 636975, at *4-5 (Ohio Ct. App. Sept. 18, 1998); Chandler v. Commonwealth, 455 S.E.2d 219, 224-25 (Va. 1995). In Newton, the Supreme Court of Colorado reviewed Williamson and determined that it was inconsistent with Colorado's incorporation of the common law into its rules of evidence. Newton, 1998 WL 643619, at *13. In addition, the court concluded that the requirement in Williamson of "severing collaterally neutral statements from each precise self-inculpatory remark deprives the jury of important context surrounding that self-inculpatory remark." Id. " he surgical precision called for by Williamson is highly artificial and nearly impossible to apply." Id. Finally, the court noted that "a narrow interpretation of the rule would apply equally to statements offered by a defendant to exculpate the defendant . . .[,] thereby making it more difficult for a defendant to present relevant evidence supporting a theory of non-involvement in the alleged crime." Id. As a result, the court "delineate a broader approach to admitting statements against penal interest . . . than the Supreme Court's interpretation" in Williamson, under which
a narrative's precise statement against penal interest and related, collaterally neutral statements are admissible subject to two limitations: 1) the trial court should exclude statements that are so self-serving as to be unreliable and 2) if the trial court determines that the declarant had a significant motivation to curry favorable treatment, then the entire narrative is inadmissible. Id. at *7.
Similarly, both the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Ohio Court of Appeals have declined to adopt the statement-by-statement analysis articulated in Williamson. See Chandler, 455 S.E.2d at 225 ("Williamson . . . concerned the interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence, not applicable here."); Julian, 1998 WL 636975, at *4 (affirming the admission of a narrative against penal interest due to the "overall incriminating nature of [the declarant's] statements to the police").
{13} Despite the fact that Williamson is not controlling in our analysis of Rule 11-804(B)(3), New Mexico courts have found the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the Federal Rules of Evidence to be instructive in the interpretation of identical provisions in our Rules of Evidence. See, e.g., , cert. quashed, No. 24,479 (1997). In fact, the Court of Appeals, interpreting Rule 11-804(B)(3), recently adopted the Williamson analysis. See . Although we agree with other jurisdictions that the Williamson analysis contains some practical difficulties, we believe that Williamson supplies a framework that more closely fulfills the purposes of Rule 11-804(B)(3), and we join the Court of Appeals in adopting Williamson for the interpretation of New Mexico law.
{14} In Williamson, the Court held that collateral statements are not admissible as statements against penal interest under federal Rule 804(b)(3). See 512 U.S. at 600-01. As the Court ultimately concluded in Williamson, we believe the determinative inquiry under Rule 11-804(B)(3) must be the text of the rule itself: whether the statement is so far contrary to the declarant's penal interest that "a reasonable person in the declarant's position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true." We agree with the United States Supreme Court that the reliability of declarations against interest is best secured by a statement-by-statement analysis of the declarant's narrative. Nonetheless, even though some courts have interpreted Williamson narrowly, we believe that Williamson does not stand for the proposition that all narratives containing statements against penal interest m
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