Raia v. Commonwealth

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that because a codefendant cannot be forced to incriminate himself in violation of the Fifth Amendment, he was unavailable for purposes of the hearsay exception
• holding statement reliable due to voluntariness of codefendants' confessions, corroboration, consistency with physical evidence, and circumstances surrounding giving of statement and codefendant's demeanor
• holding statement reliable due to voluntariness of codefendants' confessions, corroboration, consistency with physical evidence, and circumstances surrounding giving of statement and codefendant's demeanor
• applying Virginia’s three-prong test and holding that an accomplice’s statement against her penal interest was admissible in the separate trial of the defendant
• “Admissibility into evidence of the statement against interests of an unavailable witness is a ‘firmly rooted’ exception to the hearsay rule in Virginia.”
• considering corroborating evidence and voluntariness of confession

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).