Section 23.72 Declarations Against Interest

• Library: Criminal Practice 2012 Supp

B. (§23.72) Declarations Against Interest

Generally, declarations against penal interest by third parties are not admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule in criminal cases. State v. Leisure, 838 S.W.2d 49, 57 (Mo. App. E.D. 1992); State v. Turner, 623 S.W.2d 4, 8 (Mo. banc 1981), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 931 (1982); State v. Hodge, 655 S.W.2d 738, 742 (Mo. App. S.D. 1983). Before Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284 (1973), Missouri courts consistently held that declarations against the penal interest of an unavailable witness were not admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule in criminal proceedings. State v. Brown, 404 S.W.2d 179, 185 (Mo. 1966).

In Chambers, 410 U.S. 284, the trial court refused to allow the defendant to adduce testimony that a witness had made oral confessions to three witnesses. The United States Supreme Court noted that the evidence would have exonerated the defendant and was “originally made and subsequently offered at trial under circumstances that provided considerable assurance of [its] reliability,” id. at 300, because:

each confession was in a real sense self-incriminatory and unquestionably against interest;

each statement was spontaneously made to a close...