United States v. Smalls

BALDOCK, Circuit Judge.

Where a declarant is unavailable to testify at trial, Fed.R.Evid. 804(b)(3) provides for the admissibility of “[a] statement which ... at the time of its making ... so far tended to subject the declarant to ... criminal liability ... that a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true.” The issue in this interlocutory appeal, presented to us pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731, is whether the district court abused its discretion in excluding as inadmissible hearsay, and thus as outside the scope of Rule…