Evidence — hearsay

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Evidence — hearsay

Absent corroboration, the district court did not err in excluding as hearsay an out-of-court statement of an unavailable witness.

“Rogers and Henderson are friends and Henderson has offered next to nothing to corroborate Rogers’ statement that he found the gun somewhere, brought it into the van, and intended to take it home. Although Rogers was traveling in the van with Henderson, that fact is merely consistent with rather than clearly corroborative of his statement. See Butler, 71 F.3d at 253 (concluding that fact the declarant was in the room where guns were found did not corroborate exculpatory parts of declarant’s statement that the defendant was not in the room and that the police planted the guns); Silverstein, 732 F.2d at 1347 (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). Henderson takes certain language from United States v. Garcia, 897 F.2d 1413 (7th Cir. 1990), out of context. Contrary to his assertion, it is not enough for him to show ‘some corroborative evidence,’ id. at 1421, of Rogers’ statement; he is required to show ‘that corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of [the statement,’ id. at 1420 (emphasis added). He has not satisfied this requirement.”

Affirmed.

13-1736 U.S. v. Henderson

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Der-Yeghiayan, J., Tinder, J.