United States v. West

574 F.2d 1131 (4th Cir. 1978)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Brown worked with drug authorities while in prison on a drug charge. He then testified about the drug transactions to a grand jury. West (D) was convicted for distributing and possessing heroin. He appealed, claiming that Brown's grand jury testimony should not have been admitted. Brown had died before D's trial, but his testimony was admitted under Federal Rule of Evidence 804 (b)(5). This Rule provided a residual exception to the hearsay rule for those statements that did not fall within specific hearsay exceptions, but still containing circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness. D claimed that since Brown had a criminal past, and since he could not be cross-examined at trial, that his testimony did not carry the required trustworthiness guarantees. The Government (P) claimed that this requirement was met because the circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness, in this case, are at least equal to those justifying any one of the several specific exceptions to the hearsay rule.