132
Opinion of Stevens, J.
In Lee, we reaffirmed Douglas and explained that its holding "was premised on the basic understanding that when one person accuses another of a crime under circumstances in which the declarant stands to gain by inculpating another, the accusation is presumptively suspect and must be subjected to the scrutiny of cross-examination." 476 U. S., at 541. This is so because
"th[e] truthfinding function of the Confrontation Clause is uniquely threatened when an accomplice's confession is sought to be introduced against a criminal defendant without the benefit of cross-examination. . . . 'Due to his strong motivation to implicate the defendant and to exonerate himself, a codefendant's statements about what the defendant said or did are less credible than ordinary hearsay evidence.' " Ibid. (quoting Bruton, 391 U. S., at 141 (White, J., dissenting)).
Indeed, even the dissenting Justices in Lee agreed that "accomplice confessions ordinarily are untrustworthy precisely because they are not unambiguously adverse to the penal interest of the declarant," but instead are likely to be attempts to minimize the declarant's culpability. 476 U. S., at 552-553 (Blackmun, J., dissenting).2
We have adhered to this approach in construing the Federal Rules of Evidence. Thus, in Williamson v. United
2 The only arguable exception to this unbroken line of cases arose in our plurality opinion in Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74 (1970), in which we held that the admission of an accomplice's spontaneous comment that indirectly inculpated the defendant did not violate the Confrontation Clause. While Justice Stewart's plurality opinion observed that the declarant's statement was "against his penal interest," id., at 89, the Court's judgment did not rest on that point, and in no way purported to hold that statements with such an attribute were presumptively admissible. Rather, the five Justices in the majority emphasized the unique aspects of the case and emphasized that the co-conspirator spontaneously made the statement and "had no apparent reason to lie." Id., at 86-89. See also id., at 98 (Harlan, J., concurring in result).
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