Are portions of each accomplice's statement to the police admissible under the prior inconsistent statement exception?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from The People v. Garcia, B211909, No. NA074833 (Cal. App. 2010):

We accordingly conclude that portions of each accomplice's statement to the police were admissible under the hearsay exception for prior inconsistent statements. However, not every statement made by the accomplices in their police interviews was either expressly or impliedly inconsistent with their trial testimony. The prior inconsistent statement exception "does not make admissible any prior statements of a witness that are not inconsistent with the witness' testimony, even though such noninconsistent statements are made at the same time and as a part of the same conversation in which the inconsistent statements are made. 'There is no justification for permitting a witness' prior inconsistent statement to make admissible other prior statements of the witness, even though made at the same time, that are not inconsistent with the witness' testimony and possess no more reliability than any other inadmissible hearsay statements.' [Citation.]" (People v. Morgan (1978) 87 Cal.App.3d 59, 75-76, disapproved on other grounds in People v. Kimble (1988) 44 Cal.3d 480, 498; see also Benson v. Honda Motor Co. (1994) 26 Cal.App.4th 1337, 1349 [Evidence Code section 1235 "does not permit the wholesale admission into evidence of entire works in which a statement appears"].) Only those portions of the prior statement that are actually inconsistent with the witness's trial testimony are admissible under the exception. The trial court thus erred in admitting the entirety of each accomplice's statement to the police as a prior inconsistent statement.

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