Chambers v. Mississippi

410 U.S. 284, 93 S. Ct. 1038, 35 L. Ed. 2d 297, 1973 U.S. LEXIS 107

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: February 21, 1973
• Docket: 71-5908
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Powell

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioner, Leon Chambers, was tried by a jury in a Mississippi trial court and convicted of murdering a policeman. The jury assessed punishment at life imprisonment, and the Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed, one justice dissenting. 252 So. 2d 217 (1971). Pending disposition of his application for certiorari to this Court, petitioner was granted bail by order of the Circuit Justice, dated February 1, 1972. Two weeks later, on the State’s request for reconsideration, that order was reaffirmed. 405 U. S. 1205 (1972). Subsequently, the petition for certiorari was granted, 405 U. S. 987 (1972), to consider whether petitioner’s trial was conducted in accord with principles of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. We conclude that it was not.

I

The events that led to petitioner’s prosecution for murder occurred in the small town of Woodville in southern Mississippi. On Saturday evening, June 14, 1969, two Woodville policemen, James Forman and Aaron “Sonny” Liberty, entered a local bar and pool hall to execute a warrant for the arrest of a youth named C. C. Jackson. Jackson resisted and a hostile crowd of some 50 or 60 persons gathered. The officers’ first attempt to handcuff Jackson was frustrated when 20 or 25 men in the crowd intervened and wrestled him free. Forman then radioed for assistance and Liberty removed his riot gun, a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun, from the car. Three deputy sheriffs arrived shortly thereafter and the officers again attempted to make their arrest. Once more, the officers were attacked by the onlookers and during the commotion five or six pistol shots were fired. Forman was looking in a different direction when the shooting began, but immediately saw that Liberty had been shot several times in the back. Before Liberty died, he turned around and fired both barrels of his riot gun into an alley in the area from which the shots appeared to have come. The first shot was wild and high and scattered the crowd standing at the face of the alley. Liberty appeared, however, to take more deliberate aim before the second shot and hit one of the men in the crowd in the back of the head and neck as he ran down the alley. That man was Leon Chambers.

Officer Forman could not see from his vantage point who shot Liberty or whether Liberty’s shots hit anyone. One of the deputy sheriffs testified at trial that he was standing several feet from Liberty and that he saw Chambers shoot him. Another deputy sheriff stated that, although he could not see whether Chambers had a gun in his hand, he did see Chambers “break his arm down” shortly before the shots were fired. The officers who saw Chambers fall testified that they thought he was dead but they made no effort at that time either to examine him or to search for the murder weapon. Instead, they attended to Liberty, who was placed in the police car and taken to a hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. A subsequent autopsy showed that he had been hit with four bullets from a .22-caliber revolver.

Shortly after the shooting, three of Chambers’ friends discovered that he was not yet dead. James Williams,¹ Berkley Turner, and Gable McDonald loaded him into a car and transported him to the same hospital. Later that night, when the county sheriff discovered that Chambers was still alive, a guard was placed outside his room. Chambers was subsequently charged with Liberty’s murder. He pleaded not guilty and has asserted his innocence throughout.

The story of Leon Chambers is intertwined with the story of another man, Gable McDonald. McDonald, a lifelong resident of Woodville, was in the crowd on the evening of Liberty’s death. Sometime shortly after that day, he left his wife in Woodville and moved to Louisiana and found a job at a sugar mill. In November of that same year, he returned to Woodville when his wife informed him that an acquaintance of his, known as Reverend Stokes, wanted to see him. Stokes owned a gas station in Natchez, Mississippi, several miles north of Woodville, and upon his return McDonald went to see him. After talking to Stokes, McDonald agreed to make a statement to Chambers’ attorneys, who maintained offices in Natchez. Two days later, he appeared at the attorneys¹ offices and gave a sworn confession that he shot Officer Liberty. He also stated that he had already told a friend of his, James Williams, that he shot Liberty. He said that he used his own pistol, a nine-shot .22-caliber revolver, which he had discarded shortly after the shooting. In response to questions from Chambers’ attorneys, McDonald affirmed that his confession was voluntary and that no one had compelled him to come to them. Once the confession had been transcribed, signed, and witnessed, McDonald was turned over to the local police authorities and was placed in jail.

One month later, at a preliminary hearing, McDonald repudiated his prior sworn confession. He testified that Stokes had persuaded him to confess that he shot Liberty. He claimed that Stokes had promised that he would not go to jail and that he would share in the proceeds of a lawsuit that Chambers would bring against the town of Woodville. On examination by his own attorney and on cross-examination by the State, McDonald swore that he had not been at the scene when Liberty was shot but had been down the street drinking beer in a cafe with a friend, Berkley Turner. When he and Turner heard the shooting, he testified, they walked up the street and found Chambers lying in the alley. He, Turner, and Williams took Chambers to the hospital. McDonald further testified at the preliminary hearing that he did not know what had happened, that there was no discussion about the shooting either going to or coming back from the hospital, and that it was not until the next day that he learned that Chambers had been felled by a blast from Liberty’s riot gun. In addition, McDonald stated that while he once owned a .22-caliber pistol he had lost it many months before the shooting and did not own or possess a weapon at that time. The local justice of the peace accepted McDonald’s repudiation and released him from custody. The local authorities undertook no further investigation of his possible involvement.

Chambers’ case came on for trial in October of the next year.² At trial, he endeavored to develop two grounds of defense. He first attempted to show that he did not shoot Liberty. Only one officer testified that he actually saw Chambers fire the shots. Although three officers saw Liberty shoot Chambers and testified that they assumed he was shooting his attacker, none of them examined Chambers to see whether he was still alive or whether he possessed a gun. Indeed, no weapon was ever recovered from the scene and there was no proof that Chambers had ever owned a .22-caliber pistol. One witness testified that he was standing in the street near where Liberty was shot, that he was looking at Chambers when the shooting began, and that he was sure that Chambers did not fire the shots.

Petitioner’s second defense was that Gable McDonald had shot Officer Liberty. He was only partially successful, however, in his efforts to bring before the jury the testimony supporting this defense. Sam Hardin, a lifelong friend of McDonald’s, testified that he saw McDonald shoot Liberty. A second witness, one of Liberty’s cousins, testified that he saw McDonald immediately after the shooting with a pistol in his hand. In addition to the testimony of these two witnesses, Chambers endeavored to show the jury that McDonald had repeatedly confessed to the crime. Chambers attempted to prove that McDonald had admitted responsibility for the murder on four separate occasions, once when he gave the sworn statement to Chambers’ counsel and three other times prior to that occasion in private conversations with friends.

In large measure, he was thwarted in his attempt to present this portion of his defense by the strict application of certain Mississippi rules of evidence. Chambers asserts in this Court, as he did unsuccessfully in his motion for new trial and on appeal to the State Supreme Court, that the application of these evidentiary rules rendered his trial fundamentally unfair and deprived him of due process of law.³ It is necessary, therefore, to examine carefully the rulings made during the trial.

II

Chambers filed a pretrial motion requesting the court to order McDonald to appear. Chambers also sought a ruling at that time that, if the State itself chose not to call McDonald, he be allowed to call him as an adverse witness. Attached to the motion were copies of McDonald’s sworn confession and of the transcript of his preliminary hearing at which he repudiated that confession. The trial court granted the motion requiring McDonald to appear but reserved ruling on the adverse-witness motion. At trial, after the State failed to put McDonald on the stand, Chambers called McDonald, laid a predicate for the introduction of his sworn out-of-court confession, had it admitted into evidence, and read it to the jury. The State, upon cross-examination, elicited from McDonald the fact that he had repudiated his prior confession. McDonald further testified, as he had at the preliminary hearing, that he did not shoot Liberty, and that he confessed to the crime only on the promise of Reverend Stokes that he would not go to jail and would share in a sizable tort recovery from the town. He also retold his own story of his actions on the evening of the shooting, including his visit to the cafe down the street, his absence from the scene during the critical period, and his subsequent trip to the hospital with Chambers.

At the conclusion of the State’s cross-examination, Chambers renewed his motion to examine McDonald as an adverse witness. The trial court denied the motion, stating: “He may be hostile, but he is not adverse in the sense of the word, so your request will be overruled.” On appeal, the State Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s ruling, finding that “McDonald’s testimony was not adverse to appellant” because “[n]owhere did he point the finger at Chambers.” 252 So. 2d, at 220.

Defeated in his attempt to challenge directly McDonald’s renunciation of his prior confession, Chambers sought to introduce the testimony of the three witnesses to whom McDonald had admitted that he shot the officer. The first of these, Sam Hardin, would have testified that, on the night of the shooting, he spent the late evening hours with McDonald at a friend’s house after their return from the hospital and that, while driving McDonald home later that night, McDonald stated that he shot Liberty. The State objected to the admission of this testimony on the ground that it was hearsay. The trial court sustained the objection.⁴

Berkley Turner, the friend with whom McDonald said he was drinking beer when the shooting occurred, was then called to testify. In the jury’s presence, and without objection, he testified that he had not been in the cafe that Saturday and had not had any beers with McDonald. The jury was then excused. In the absence of the jury, Turner recounted his conversations with McDonald while they were riding with James Williams to take Chambers to the hospital. When asked whether McDonald said anything regarding the shooting of Liberty, Turner testified that McDonald told him that he “shot him.” Turner further stated that one week later, when he met McDonald at a friend’s house, McDonald reminded him of their prior conversation and urged Turner not to “mess him up.” Petitioner argued to the court that, especially where there was other proof in the case that was corroborative of these out-of-court statements, Turner’s testimony as to McDonald’s self-incriminating remarks should have been admitted as an exception to the hearsay rule. Again, the trial court sustained the State’s objection.

The third witness, Albert Carter, was McDonald’s neighbor. They had been friends for about 25 years. Although Carter had not been in Woodville on the evening of the shooting, he stated that he learned about it the next morning from McDonald. That same day, he and McDonald walked out to a well near McDonald’s house and there McDonald told him that he was the one who shot Officer Liberty. Carter testified that McDonald also told him that he had disposed of the .22-caliber revolver later that night. He further testified that several weeks after the shooting, he accompanied McDonald to Natchez where McDonald purchased another .22 pistol to replace the one he had discarded.⁵ The jury was not allowed to hear Carter’s testimony. Chambers urged that these statements were admissible, the State objected, and the court sustained the objection.⁶ On appeal, the State Supreme Court approved the lower court’s exclusion of these witnesses’ testimony on hearsay grounds. 252 So. 2d, at 220.

In sum, then, this was Chambers’ predicament. As a consequence of the combination of Mississippi’s “party-witness” or “voucher” rule and its hearsay rule, he was unable either to cross-examine McDonald or to present witnesses in his own behalf who would have discredited McDonald’s repudiation and demonstrated his complicity. Chambers had, however, chipped away at the fringes of McDonald’s story by introducing admissible testimony from other sources indicating that he had not been seen in the cafe where he said he was when the shooting started, that he had not been having beer with Turner, and that he possessed a .22 pistol at the time of the crime. But all that remained from McDonald’s own testimony was a single written confession countered by an arguably acceptable renunciation. Chambers’ defense was far less persuasive than it might have been had he been given an opportunity to subject McDonald’s statements to cross-examination or had the other confessions been admitted.

III

The right of an accused in a criminal trial to due process is, in essence, the right to a fair opportunity to defend against the State’s accusations. The rights to confront and cross-examine witnesses and to call witnesses in one’s own behalf have long been recognized as essential to due process. Mr. Justice Black, writing for the Court in In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 273 (1948), identified these rights as among the minimum essentials of a fair trial:

“A person’s right to reasonable notice of a charge against him, and an opportunity to be heard in his defense — a right to his day in court — are basic in our system of jurisprudence; and these rights include, as a minimum, a right to examine the witnesses against him, to offer testimony, and to be represented by counsel.”

See also Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 488-489 (1972); Jenkins v. McKeithen, 395 U. S. 411, 428-429 (1969); Specht v. Patterson, 386 U. S. 605, 610 (1967). Both, of these elements of a fair trial are implicated in the present case.

A

Chambers was denied an opportunity to subject McDonald’s damning repudiation and alibi to cross-examination. He was not allowed to test the witness’ recollection, to probe into the details of his alibi, or to “sift” his conscience so that the jury might judge for itself whether McDonald’s testimony was worthy of belief. Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237, 242-243 (1895). The right of cross-examination is more than a desirable rule of trial procedure. It is implicit in the constitutional right of confrontation, and helps assure the “accuracy of the truth-determining process.” Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 89 (1970); Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 135-137 (1968). It is, indeed, “an essential and fundamental requirement for the kind of fair trial which is this country’s constitutional goal.” Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400, 405 (1965). Of course, the right to confront and to cross-examine is not absolute and may, in appropriate cases, bow to accommodate other legitimate interests in the criminal trial process. E. g., Mancusi v. Stubbs, 408 U. S. 204 (1972). But its denial or significant diminution calls into question the ultimate “ 'integrity of the fact-finding process’ ” and requires that the competing interest be closely examined. Berger v. California, 393 U. S. 314, 315 (1969).

In this case, petitioner’s request to cross-examine McDonald was denied on the basis of a Mississippi common-law rule that a party may not impeach his own witness. The rule rests on the presumption — without regard to the circumstances of the particular case — that a party who calls a witness “vouches for his credibility.” Clark v. Lansford, 191 So. 2d 123, 125 (Miss. 1966). Although the historical origins of the “voucher” rule are uncertain, it appears to be a remnant of primitive English trial practice in which “oath-takers” or “com-purgators” were called to stand behind a particular party’s position in any controversy. Their assertions were strictly partisan and, quite unlike witnesses in criminal trials today, their role bore little relation to the impartial ascertainment of the facts.⁷

Whatever validity the “voucher” rule may have once enjoyed, and apart from whatever usefulness it retains today in the civil trial process, it bears little present relationship to the realities of the criminal process.⁸ It might have been logical for the early common law to require a party to vouch for the credibility of witnesses he brought before the jury to affirm his veracity. Having selected them especially for that purpose, the party might reasonably be expected to stand firmly behind their testimony. But in modern criminal trials, defendants are rarely able to select their witnesses: they must take them where they find them. Moreover, as applied in this case, the “voucher” rule’s⁹ impact was doubly harmful to Chambers’ efforts to develop his defense. Not only was he precluded from cross-examining McDonald, but, as the State conceded at oral argument,¹⁰ he was also restricted in the scope of his direct examination by the rule’s corollary requirement that the party calling the witness is bound by anything he might say. He was, therefore, effectively prevented from exploring the circumstances of McDonald’s three prior oral confessions and from challenging the renunciation of the written confession.

In this Court, Mississippi has not sought to defend the rule or explain its underlying rationale. Nor has it contended that its rule should override the accused’s right of confrontation. Instead, it argues that there is no incompatability between the rule and Chambers’ rights because no right of confrontation exists unless the testifying witness is “adverse” to the accused. The State’s brief asserts that the “right of confrontation applies to witnesses ‘against’ an accused.”¹¹ Relying on the trial court’s determination that McDonald was not “adverse,” and on the State Supreme Court’s holding that McDonald did not “point the finger at Chambers,” ¹² the State contends that Chambers’ constitutional right was not involved.

The argument that McDonald’s testimony was not “adverse” to, or “against,” Chambers is not convincing. The State’s proof at trial excluded the theory that more than one person participated in the shooting of Liberty. To the extent that McDonald’s sworn confession tended to incriminate him, it tended also to exculpate Chambers.¹³ And, in the circumstances of this case, McDonald’s retraction inculpated Chambers to the same extent that it exculpated McDonald. It can hardly be disputed that McDonald’s testimony was in fact seriously adverse to Chambers. The availability of the right to confront and to cross-examine those who give damaging testimony against the accused has never been held to depend on whether the witness was initially put on the stand by the accused or by the State. We reject the notion that a right of such substance in the criminal process may be governed by that technicality or by any narrow and unrealistic definition of the word “against.” The “voucher” rule, as applied in this case, plainly interfered with Chambers’ right to defend against the State’s charges.

B

We need not decide, however, whether this error alone would occasion reversal since Chambers’ claimed denial of due process rests on the ultimate impact of that error when viewed in conjunction with the trial court’s refusal to permit him to call other witnesses. The trial court refused to allow him to introduce the testimony of Hardin, Turner, and Carter. Each would have testified to the statements purportedly made by McDonald, on three separate occasions shortly after the crime, naming himself as the murderer. The State Supreme Court approved the exclusion of this evidence on the ground that it was hearsay.

The hearsay rule, which has long been recognized and respected by virtually every State, is based on experience and grounded in the notion that untrustworthy evidence should not be presented to the triers of fact. Out-of-court statements are traditionally excluded because they lack the conventional indicia of reliability: they are usually not made under oath or other circumstances that impress the speaker with the solemnity of his statements; the declarant’s word is not subject to cross-examination; and he is not available in order that his demeanor and credibility may be assessed by the jury. California v. Creen, 399 U. S. 149, 158 (1970). A number of exceptions have developed over the years to allow admission of hearsay statements made under circumstances that tend to assure reliability and thereby compensate for the absence of the oath and opportunity for cross-examination. Among the most prevalent of these exceptions is the one applicable to declarations against interest¹⁴ — an exception founded on the assumption that a person is unlikely to fabricate a statement against his own interest at the time it is made. Mississippi recognizes this exception but applies it only to declarations against pecuniary interest.¹⁵ It recognizes no such exception for declarations, like McDonald’s in this case, that are against the penal interest of the declarant. Brown v. State, 99 Miss. 719, 55 So. 961 (1911).

This materialistic limitation on the declaration-against-interest hearsay exception appears to be accepted by most States in their criminal trial processes,¹⁶ although a number of States have discarded it.¹⁷ Declarations against penal interest have also been excluded in federal courts under the authority of Donnelly v. United States, 228 U. S. 243, 272-273 (1913), although exclusion would not be required under the newly proposed Federal Rules of Evidence.¹⁸ Exclusion, where the limitation prevails, is usually premised on the view that admission would lead to the frequent presentation of perjured testimony to the jury. It is believed that confessions of criminal activity are often motivated by extraneous considerations and, therefore, are not as inherently reliable as statements against pecuniary or proprietary interest. While that rationale has been the subject of considerable scholarly criticism,¹⁹ we need not decide in this case whether, under other circumstances, it might serve some valid state purpose by excluding untrustworthy testimony.

The hearsay statements involved in this case were originally made and subsequently offered at trial under circumstances that _ provided considerable assurance of their reliability. First, each of McDonald's confessions was made spontaneously to a close acquaintance shortly after the murder had occurred. Second, each one was corroborated by some other evidence in the case— McDonald's sworn confession, the testimony of an eyewitness to the shooting, the testimony that McDonald was seen with a gun immediately after the shooting, and proof of his prior ownership of a .22-caliber revolver and subsequent purchase of a new weapon. The sheer number of independent confessions provided additional corroboration for each. Third, whatever may be the parameters of the penal-interest rationale,²⁰ each confession here was in a very real sense self-incriminatory and unquestionably against interest. See United States v. Harris, 403 U. S. 573, 584 (1971); Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S., at 89. McDonald stood to benefit nothing by disclosing his role in the shooting to any of his three friends and he must have been aware of the possibility that disclosure would lead to criminal prosecution. Indeed, after telling Turner of his involvement, he subsequently urged Turner not to “mess him up.” Finally, if there was any question about the truthfulness of the extrajudicial statements, McDonald was present in the courtroom and was under oath. He could have been cross-examined by the State, and his demeanor and responses weighed by the jury. See California v. Green, 399 U. S. 149 (1970). The availability of McDonald significantly distinguishes this case from the prior Mississippi precedent, Brown v. State, supra, and from the Donnelly-type situation, since in both cases the declarant was unavailable at the time of trial.²¹

New rights are more fundamental than that of an accused to present witnesses in his own defense. E. g., Webb v. Texas, 409 U. S. 95 (1972); Washington v. Texas, 388 U. S. 14, 19 (1967); In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257 (1948). In the exercise of this right, the accused, as is required of the State, must comply with established rules of procedure and evidence designed to assure both fairness and reliability in the ascertainment of guilt and innocence. Although perhaps no rule of evidence has been more respected or more frequently applied in jury trials than that applicable to the exclusion of hearsay, exceptions tailored to allow the introduction of evidence which in fact is likely to be trustworthy have long existed. The testimony rejected by the trial court here bore persuasive assurances of trustworthiness and thus was well within the basic rationale of the exception for declarations against interest. That testimony also was critical to Chambers’ defense. In these circumstances, where constitutional rights directly affecting the ascertainment of guilt are implicated, the hearsay rule may not be applied mechanistically to defeat the ends of justice.

We conclude that the exclusion of this critical evidence, coupled with the State’s refusal to permit Chambers to cross-examine McDonald, denied him a trial in accord with traditional and fundamental standards of due process. In reaching this judgment, we establish no new principles of constitutional law. Nor does our holding signal any diminution in the respect traditionally accorded to the States in the establishment and implementation of their own criminal trial rules and procedures. Rather, we hold quite simply that under the facts and circumstances of this case the rulings of the trial court deprived Chambers of a fair trial.

The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the Supreme Court of Mississippi for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

1 James Williams was indicted along with Chambers. The State, however, failed to introduce any evidence at trial implicating Williams in the shooting. At the conclusion of the State’s case-in-chief, the trial court granted a directed verdict in his favor.

2 Upon Chambers’ motion, a change of venue was granted and the trial was held in Amite County, to the east of Woodville. The change of trial setting was in response to petitioner’s claim that, because of adverse publicity and the hostile attitude of the police and sheriff’s staffs in Woodville, he could not obtain a fair and impartial trial there.

3 On the record in this case, despite the State Supreme Court’s failure to address the constitutional issue, it is clear that Chambers’ asserted denial of due process is properly before us. He objected during trial to each of the court’s rulings. As to the confrontation claim, petitioner asserted, both before and during trial, his right to treat McDonald as an adverse witness. His motion for new trial, filed after the jury’s verdict, listed as error the trial court’s refusal to permit cross-examination of McDonald and the exclusion of evidence corroborative of McDonald’s guilt. The motion concluded that the trial “was not in accord with fundamental fairness guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.” Chambers reasserted those claims on appeal to the State Supreme Court. After the affirmance of his conviction by that court, Chambers filed a petition for rehearing addressed almost entirely to the claim that his trial had not been conducted in a manner consistent with traditional notions of due process. The State Supreme Court raised no question that Chambers’ claims were not properly asserted, and no claim has been made by the State — in its response to the petition for certiorari, in its brief on the merits, or at oral argument — that the questions are not properly reviewable by this Court. See Street v. New York, 394 U. S. 576, 581-585 (1969); New York ex rel. Bryant v. Zimmerman, 278 U. S. 63, 67-68 (1928).

Unlike Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443 (1965), this case does not involve the state procedural requirement of contemporaneous objection to the admission of evidence. Petitioner’s contention, asserted before the trial court on motion for new trial and subsequently before the Mississippi Supreme Court, is that he was denied “fundamental fairness guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment” as a result of several evidentiary rulings. His claim, the substance of which we accept in this opinion, rests on the cumulative effect of those rulings in frustrating his efforts to develop an exculpatory defense. Although he objected to each ruling individually, petitioner’s constitutional claim — based as it is on the cumulative impact of the rulings — could not have been raised and ruled upon prior to the conclusion of Chambers’ evidentiary presentation. Since the State has not asserted any independent state procedural ground as a basis for not reaching the merits of petitioner’s constitutional claim, we have no occasion to decide whether — if such a ground exists — its imposition in this case would serve any “legitimate state interest.” Id., at 447. Under these circumstances, we cannot doubt the propriety of our exercise of jurisdiction.

4 Hardin’s testimony, unlike the testimony of the other two men who stated that McDonald had confessed to them, was actually given in the jury’s presence. After the State’s objection to Hardin’s account of McDonald’s statement was sustained, the trial court ordered the jury to disregard it.

5 A gun dealer from Natchez testified that McDonald had made two purchases. The witness’ business records indicated that McDonald purchased a nine-shot .22-caliber revolver about a year prior to the murder. He purchased a different style .22 three weeks after Liberty’s death.

6 It is not entirely clear whether the trial court’s ruling was premised on the same hearsay rationale underlying the exclusion of the other testimony. In this instance, the State argued that Carter’s testimony was an impermissible attempt by petitioner to impeach a witness (McDonald) who was not adverse to him. The trial court did not state why it was excluding the evidence but the State Supreme Court indicated that it was excluded as hearsay. 252 So. 2d, at 220.

7 3A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 896, pp. 658-660 (J. Chadbourn ed. 1970); C. McCormick, Evidence § 38, pp. 75-78 (2d ed. 1972).

8 The “voucher” rule has been condemned as archaic, irrational, and potentially destructive of the truth-gathering process. C. McCormick, supra, n. 7; E. Morgan, Basic Problems of Evidence 70-71 (1962); 3A J. Wigmore, supra, n. 7, § 898, p. 661.

9 The “voucher” rule has been rejected altogether by the newly proposed Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 607, Rules of Evidence for United States Courts and Magistrates (approved Nov. 20, 1972, and transmitted to Congress to become effective July 1, 1973, unless the Congress otherwise determines).

10 Tr. of Oral Arg. 35-37.

11 Brief for Respondent 9 (emphasis supplied).

12 252 So. 2d, at 220.

13 See Donnelly v. United States, 228 U. S. 243, 272 (1913).

14 Jefferson, Declarations Against Interest: An Exception to the Hearsay Rule, 58 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1944).

15 H. McElroy, Mississippi Evidence § 46 (1955); Forrest County Coop. Assn. v. McCaffrey, 253 Miss. 486, 493, 176 So. 2d 287, 289-290 (1965).

16 C. McCormick, supra, n. 7, § 278, p. 673; 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1476, pp. 283-287 n. 9 (1940).

17 See, e. g., People v. Spriggs, 60 Cal. 2d 868, 389 P. 2d 377 (1964); People v. Lettrich, 413 Ill. 172, 108 N. E. 2d 488 (1952); People v. Brown, 26 N. Y. 2d 88, 257 N. E. 2d 16 (1970); Hines v. Commonwealth, 136 Va. 728, 117 S. E. 843 (1923).

18 Rule 804, supra, n. 9.

19 See, e. g., Committee on Rules of Practice & Procedure, Rules of Evidence for United States Courts and Magistrates 129-131 (rev. draft, Mar. 1971); 5 J. Wigmore, supra, n. 16, § 1476, p. 284; Wright, Uniform Rules and Hearsay, 26 U. Cin. L. Rev. 575 (1957); United States v. Annunziato, 293 F. 2d 373, 378 (CA2), cert, denied, 368 U. S. 919 (1961) (Friendly, J.); Scolari v. United States, 406 F. 2d 563, 564 (CA9), cert, denied, 395 U. S. 981 (1969).

20 The Mississippi case which refused to adopt a hearsay exception for declarations against penal interest concerned an out-of-court declarant who purportedly stated that he had committed the murder with which his brother had been charged. The Mississippi Supreme Court believed that the declarant might have been motivated by a desire to free his brother rather than by any compulsion of guilt. The Court also noted that the declarant had fled, was unavailable for cross-examination, and might well have known at the time he made the statement that he would not suffer for it. Brown v. State, 99 Miss. 719, 55 So. 961 (1911). There is, in the present case, no such basis for doubting McDonald’s statements. See Note, 43 Miss. L. J. 122, 127-129 (1972).

21 McDonald’s presence also deprives the State’s argument for retention of the penal-interest rule of much of its force. In claiming that “[t]o change the rule would work a travesty on justice,” the State posited the following hypothetical:

“If the rule were changed, A could be charged with the crime; B could tell C and D that he committed the crime; B could go into hiding and at A’s trial C and D would testify as to B’s admission of guilt; A could be acquitted and B would return to stand trial; B could then provide several witnesses to testify as to his whereabouts at the time of the crime. The testimony of those witnesses along with A’s statement that he really committed the crime could result in B’s acquittal. A would be barred from further prosecution because of the protection against double jeopardy. No one could be convicted of perjury as A did not testify at his first trial, B did not lie under oath, and C and D were truthful in their testimony.” Brief for Respondent 7 n. 3 (emphasis supplied).

Obviously, B’s absence at trial is critical to the success of the justice-subverting ploy.