OPINION

delivered the opinion of the Court,

During the early morning hours of September 1, 2003, the bodies of three employees were found inside a small office of the Outback Steakhouse in Texarkana. Each had been shot. Approximately $800 was taken. A jury convicted appellant of these capital murders and sentenced him to life imprisonment. During trial, Roderick Henson testified about a conversation he had with his brother Markel,1 appellant’s co-defendant. Markel’s statements to his brother implicated both himself and appellant in the robbery-murders, but placed the blame for killing the three victims solely on appellant. The trial judge admitted all of Markel’s statements under the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest2 because they impli*886cated him in the capital murder. The court of appeals affirmed this ruling, noting also that the record provided “significant corroboration” indicating the trustworthiness of Markel’s statements to his brother.3

We granted review to determine whether the entire conversation was admissible as a statement against interest under Texas Rule of Evidence 803(24) or only those specific portions that were actually against Markel’s penal interest.4 We conclude that only those statements that are directly against the speaker’s penal interest (including “blame-sharing” statements) are admissible under Rule 808(24). Self-exculpatory statements that shift blame to another must be excluded. The rule requires courts to separate the dross of blame-shifting statements from the gold of self-inculpatory and blame-sharing statements, admitting only the latter. We therefore reverse and remand the case to the court of appeals for a harm analysis.

I.

On August 31, 2003, the last night of his vacation, Matt Hines, the proprietor of the Texarkana Outback, drove to the restaurant to help Rebecca Shifflet, the general manager, and Crystal Willis, the assistant manager, do the end-of-the-month inventory. Around 12:30 a.m., Matt’s wife, Toni Hines, called his cell phone to check up on him. There was no answer. She tried the restaurant. No answer. She began to get worried, made several more unanswered calls to Matt, and finally drove to the restaurant. “All the lights were still on and all the blinds were open, and [she] knew that wasn’t right.” After knocking on the door, honking her horn, and trying to call Ms. Shifflet, Toni called 911.

The police responded. After finding another employee who had keys, they entered the restaurant. Everything appeared normal. Then someone looked in the small back office and saw three bodies lying on the bloody floor. All had been shot in the head.

The following morning, Markel Henson told his older brother, Roderick, that he was “involved” in what had happened at the Outback. Markel was nervous, but he wanted his brother’s help in burning the clothes that he had worn the night before. He told Roderick how he and appellant had planned to rob the restaurant — at which both had previously worked but had been fired — and then carried out that plan. After hearing his younger brother’s story, Roderick helped Markel burn the clothes, and he stored the money that Markel gave him in a closet. After several days of asking Markel to turn himself in, Roderick *887told his wife to call the police. Roderick then told the police what Markel had told him. Markel and appellant were soon charged with capital murder.

Shortly after Roderick began testifying in the State’s case-in-chief, the defense objected and requested a hearing outside the presence of the jury. Appellant’s counsel argued that while Roderick should be allowed to relate Markel’s self-inculpa-tory statements because they were against Market’s penal interest, he should not be allowed to relate Markel’s statements that inculpated only appellant. Counsel said that those hearsay statements were an attempt to shift blame to appellant and minimize Markel’s involvement.

Before ruling on the admissibility of these statements, the trial judge heard Roderick’s proposed testimony outside the presence of the jury. Roderick stated that Markel had privately come to him the day after the murders asking for his help. Markel said that he and appellant “went to [the] Outback to hit a lick,” which, to Roderick, meant to “make some money, I guess, rob.... And he told me that [appellant] went in the office and got the money, and came back and gave him the bag of money, and went back in the office. And I guess he was trying to get the key to the safe. And then he told me he heard six gunshots, and, basically, that’s about it.” Markel “said he was standing in the hallway when appellant went to the office.” Markel told Roderick that he heard people begging for their lives; he heard screams. Someone called appellant by his first name, “Stephon, please don’t shoot me,” and “Please don’t kill us.” Markel said that they planned to get the money out of the safe, but they couldn’t find the key to it. They left and drove back to appellant’s apartment complex where they split the money, about $400.00 each. Markel also told Roderick that appellant put a gun to his head and threatened to kill him if he told anyone.

After brief arguments by counsel, the trial judge ruled that the entire conversation between Markel and Roderick was admissible as a statement against Markel’s interest because Markel had implicated himself in the capital murders.5

*888With the jury present, Roderick testified that he had a conversation with his brother in Markel’s bedroom the Monday morning after the Sunday-night robbery. Roderick said Markel was nervous. He then repeated the above statements, explaining how Markel said that he was standing in a hallway while appellant went into the office, returned with a bag of money, and then, after appellant returned to the office, Markel heard six shots. Roderick testified that, after this conversation, they gathered up Markel’s clothes, left Markel’s house, and went to Roderick’s house where they burned the clothes in a backyard barbecue.6

Later in the trial, appellant’s mother testified that appellant had told her that he was “the mastermind” behind the robbery at the Outback.

Appellant’s brother-in-law, Billy Ray Johnson, testified that appellant came to him the day before the robbery and asked him for a gun. Billy Ray gave him a .380 caliber handgun.7 Later that day, appellant told Billy Ray “that he should do Outback,” meaning “rob the place.” Still later, appellant again said that he “should do Outback” with the borrowed gun.

Billy Ray then related another conversation he had with appellant immediately after the Outback robbery. Appellant came to Billy Ray’s bedroom and nervously “explained to me that he had robbed and killed someone at Outback. He had said he had robbed and killed someone at Outback.... I believe he said three had got killed.” Appellant said Markel went with him. Billy Ray thought appellant was serious “because of the way [he] was looking.” Billy Ray told appellant that he should have killed Markel to ensure that he wouldn’t talk.

Appellant testified and admitted talking to Markel that night, checking to see “if he was going to hang out with me, come to the house and watch a couple movies.” He said that he and Markel talked about doing something illegal that night and that Markel asked for a gun. Appellant went to Billy Ray’s to get a gun for Markel and borrowed it because he was “just helping somebody out.” He denied going to the Outback that night.

The jury found appellant guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. On appeal, appellant claimed that the trial court erred by not excluding Roderick’s testimony about Markel’s statements both under the hearsay rule and under the Confrontation Clause.

The court of appeals addressed both of these claims. It concluded that Markel’s statements were not testimonial because they were made during a spontaneous conversation between the two brothers as *889Markel attempted to obtain his brother’s help in eluding identification.8 Because the statements were nontestimonial, the Confrontation Clause did not necessarily bar their admission.9 The court then turned to the evidentiary issue of whether the statements were admissible under Rule 803(24), the hearsay exception for statements against penal interest. The court of appeals found that the statements were sufficiently self-inculpatory because they tended to subject Markel to the same criminal liability as appellant, even though Markel’s “statements seem to depict him as the less culpable one[.]”10 Assessing the six factors listed in Dewberry v. State,11 the court explained how “the record provides significant corroboration that clearly indicates the trustworthiness of [Markel’s] statements to his brother.”12 Because Markel’s statements were both sufficiently self-inculpatory and trustworthy, based upon corroborating circumstances, the court of appeals concluded that the trial judge properly admitted all of them.13

II.

Generally speaking, the hearsay rule excludes any out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.14 But, like most rules, this one has exceptions, twenty-seven explicit exceptions, as well as numerous exemptions that are defined out of the rule.15 The twenty-seven exceptions stem from the notion that the four hearsay dangers of faulty perception, faulty memory, miscom-munication, and insincerity are either absent or minimal in certain situations. Statements made in these situations or under the specified circumstances carry such sufficient, independent, circumstantial guarantees of trustworthiness that the rule deems cross-examination unnecessary.16 These are gold-standard statements. Of the twenty-four exceptions listed under Rule 803, most can be categorized as unre-flective statements, reliable documents, or reputation evidence.17 They involve situations in which people normally would not *890have the opportunity or motive to create a falsehood or shade the truth.18 The last exception under Rule 803, the one for statements against interest is, however, based upon a somewhat different rationale.19

The exception for statements against pecuniary, penal, or social interest stems from the commonsense notion that people ordinarily do not say things that are damaging to themselves unless they believe they are true.20 Thus, a reasonable person would not normally claim that he committed a crime, unless it were true.21 This is the guiding principle behind both the Texas and federal hearsay exceptions for statements against penal interest.22

The rule sets out a two-step foundation requirement for admissibility.23 First, the trial court must determine whether the statement, considering all the circumstances,24 subjects the declarant to criminal liability25 and whether the declar-*891ant realized this when he made that statement.26 Second, the court must determine whether there are sufficient corroborating circumstances that clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.27

Statements against penal interest fall into three general categories: Some inculpate only the declarant (e.g., “I killed Joe.”);28 others inculpate equally both the declarant and a third party, such as a co-defendant (e.g., “We killed Joe.”);29 still others inculpate both the declarant and third party, but also shift blame by minimizing the speaker’s culpability (e.g., ‘We robbed the bank, and Dan killed Joe, the bank teller.”).30 A confession, conver*892sation or narrative, even a short one, might mix together all three types of statements.

When an extended narrative contains statements that inculpate both the declar-ant and a third person, the application of the exception is not obvious. The question becomes: How much dross may accompany the gold of the purely self-inculpatory statements?31

In Williamson v. United States,32 the Supreme Court addressed precisely this question in a fractured set of opinions. In that case, a Florida deputy sheriff stopped a rental car for weaving on the highway.33 He found nineteen kilograms of cocaine in the car, and he arrested the driver, Harris.34 Harris then told a DEA agent that he was only transporting the drugs, which belonged to Williamson.35 Harris refused to testify at Williamson’s trial, so the trial court admitted Harris’s prior statements into evidence as statements against interest.36 On appeal to the Supreme Court, *893the case turned on what is meant by the word “statement” in the federal hearsay exception for a statement against penal interest.37 If “statement” is given a broad meaning, admissibility is determined by looking to how inculpatory the statement is as a whole; if it “sufficiently inculpates” the declarant, the entire narrative comes in.38 If, on the other hand, “statement” is given a narrow meaning, the hearsay exception would “cover only those declarations or remarks within the confession that are individually self-inculpatory.”39 In choosing the more narrow definition, a majority of the Court stated,

The fact that a person is making a broadly self-inculpatory confession does not make more credible the confession’s non-self-inculpatory parts. One of the most effective ways to lie is to mix falsehood with truth, especially truth that seems particularly persuasive because of its self-inculpatory nature.40

In distinguishing between self-inculpatory remarks and those remarks that are collateral to the self-inculpatory ones, the majority explained,

The fact that a statement is self-inculpa-tory does make it more reliable; but the fact that a statement is collateral to a self-inculpatory statement says nothing at all about the collateral statement’s reliability. We see no reason why collateral statements, even ones that are neutral as to interest ... should be treated any differently from other hearsay statements that are generally excluded.41

The majority concluded that “the most faithful reading of Rule 804(b)(3) is that it does not allow admission of non-self-ineul-patory statements, even if they are made within a broader narrative that is generally self-inculpatory.”42 Thus, a trial court may not just assume that a particular statement is self-inculpatory merely because it is part of a fuller narrative that is, in its entirety, self-inculpatory43 The Supreme Court concluded that some of Harris’s statements were admissible, such as when Harris said that he knew the suitcase contained cocaine,44 but other statements, especially those that shifted blame to Williamson, were not.

Although all members of the Supreme Court agreed that at least some of Harris’s statements were inadmissible, they disagreed upon which portions should be excluded. Four justices concluded that none of Harris’s statements to the DEA agent should have been admitted because his “inculpatory statements are too closely in*894tertwined with his self-serving declarations to be ranked as trustworthy.”45 Three others thought that only unreliable “blame-shifting” collateral statements should be excluded, while “blame-sharing” or neutral collateral statements should be admitted unless “the declarant had a significant motivation to obtain favorable treatment,” in which case the entire statement should be inadmissible.46 (Of course, in a post -Crawford, post-Davis world, all of Harris’s custodial interrogation statements were testimonial and thus excluda-ble under the Confrontation Clause unless Williamson had had a prior opportunity to cross-examine Harris.47)

This Court and other Texas courts have long followed the basic reasoning and analysis in Williamson in addressing Texas Rule 803(24).48 In Dewberry v. State,49 without explicitly saying so, we followed the approach of Justice Kennedy’s concurring opinion in upholding the admission of both self-inculpatory statements and “blame-sharing” or neutral collateral statements under Rule 803(24).50 In examining *895whether the “blame-sharing” statements were sufficiently self-inculpatory, we noted,

The State was careful to elicit accounts only of statements made by [the declar-ant co-defendant] referring to “we,’ which included both him and appellant. An admission against a co-defendant de-clarant’s interest can be admissible against the defendant so long as it is sufficiently against the declarant’s interest to be reliable.... Because [the de-clarant’s] statements containing ‘we’ implicated him in the capital murder ..., this Court concludes that his statements were sufficiently self-inculpatory to be reliable under Williamson and Cofield.51

But in a separate capital-murder ease, Guidry v. State,52 decided two months later, we held that “blame-shifting” statements that did not inculpate the speaker and the defendant equally were inadmissible under the rule.53 We stated,

The statements made by Prystash [the declarant co-defendant] in the instant case are not so equally against both Prystash’s and appellant’s interests as reach this level of reliability. While some of Prystash’s statements refer to ‘we,’ meaning both himself and appellant, on the critical issue of who killed the victim, Prystash’s statements inculpate appellant alone as the triggerman and describe with specificity how ‘appellant’ killed the victim. Prystash told Gipp he just dropped appellant off at the victim’s residence and picked him up after appellant had committed the murder. Granted both driver and triggerman bear potentially equal criminal liability, but the driver might be in a better bargaining position should he decide to cooperate with the State, and the driver might have a better chance at gaining sympathy from the jury. Because Prys-tash’s statements so clearly delineate his and appellant’s roles on the critical issue of who killed the victim, we hold the statements made by Prystash which *896were against appellant’s interest were not admissible under Rule 803(24).54

Our ease law, like that of several other states,55 reflects a somewhat more permissive approach to admitting statements against interest than the one announced by the two-justice plurality in Williamson. We therefore formally adopt Justice Kennedy’s approach and that taken by Dean McCormick56 and informally taken by this Court in Dewberry and Guidry: Both statements that are directly against the declarant’s interest and collateral “blame-sharing” statements may be admissible under Rule 803(24), if corroborating circumstances clearly indicate their trustworthiness.57 “Blame-shifting” statements that minimize the speaker’s culpability are not, absent extraordinary circumstances, admissible under the rule.

Not only is this approach consistent with our case law, but we conclude that it also represents better evidentiary policy. First, the attempt to sever collaterally neutral or “blame-sharing” statements from each specific self-inculpatory remark deprives the jury of important context surrounding that self-inculpatory remark.58 That approach places too much emphasis on the policy against admitting hearsay while undervaluing the need for meaningful evidence in criminal cases. As noted by the Colorado Supreme Court, “the surgical precision called for by [the plurality in] Williamson is highly artificial and nearly impossible to apply.”59 Second, such an approach would, as Justice Kennedy noted, also apply to statements offered by the defendant to exculpate him.60 This would unduly restrict defendants from of*897fering exculpatory evidence and is not consistent with prior Texas cases that had assessed the trustworthiness of such statements by other means.61 Third, and most important, the “testimonial” vs. “non-testimonial” approach to the Confrontation Clause taken in Crawford and Davis already provides a better mechanism to exclude uncross-examined statements that are most likely to be untrustworthy — those statements consciously made with an eye toward later criminal litigation.62 We believe that our second-stage foundation requirement that no statement against penal interest is admissible “unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement” is a sufficient guard against the use of unreliable “blame-sharing” statements.

Thus, the trial judge is obligated to parse a generally self-inculpatory narra-five and weed out those specific factual statements that are self-exculpatory or shift blame to another. The gold of self-incriminating words cannot carry with it the dross of self-exculpatory ones.

III.

In this case, the question is whether Markel’s “street corner” spontaneous statements made to his brother on the day after the Outback robbery, pointing the finger at appellant as the sole shooter, were admissible simply because those statements were part of a larger narrative in which Markel also implicated himself. The State contends that the court of appeals correctly decided the issue because only by implicating appellant in the murders did Markel make himself *898criminally responsible.63 Furthermore, the State argues, overwhelming independent corroborating evidence indicates the trustworthiness of the entire narrative.

First, the State notes that Markel’s statements were not made to law enforcement agents and, thus, he did not have a motive to shift blame to appellant. According to the State, the fact that this was a “street corner” spontaneous conversation with the declarant’s brother distinguishes this case from Williamson, in which the declarant gave testimonial custodial statements to the police. That is true. Statements to friends, loved ones, or family members normally do not raise the same trustworthiness concerns as those made to investigating officers because there the declarant has an obvious motive to minimize his own role in a crime and shift the blame to others.64 But here a nervous Markel was seeking the help of his disapproving brother in an attempt to avoid detection for any part in a heinous capital murder. Markel clearly had at least some motive to minimize his level of culpability in his brother’s eyes — the less culpable he was, the more likely that his brother would help him. As appellant asserts, Markel had reason to “curry favor” or shade the truth, even when speaking with a family member. It must be kept in mind that the basis of this exception is not that a declarant is in a general “trustworthy” frame of mind. The probability of trustworthiness comes only from the facts asserted being self-inculpatory.

Second, the State urges that, under the law of parties, Markel’s statements were inherently reliable because he talked himself into liability for the capital murders committed by appellant. But it is far from certain that Markel — or the average reasonable person — would be aware that accompanying appellant to the Outback as part of the robbery plan would make him equally responsible for appellant’s acts of killing the three employees. We know that; the trial judge knew that; the prosecutor and defense counsel knew that. But if this were so widely known to the average reasonable person, it would not be necessary to spend so much time during voir dire discussing the legal concept of party liability. There is no evidence in this record that Markel, at the time he spoke to Roderick, knew that, by naming appellant as the Outback murderer, he was *899making himself criminally liable for those murders. His “blame-shifting” statements bespeak more of ignorance than of trustworthiness.65

At any rate, when Markel explained how he was, at most, a lookout, while appellant went back to the office, took the money, gave it to Markel, and then went back into the office to shoot the three witnesses, that small role in the crime could tend to make him less culpable in Roderick’s eyes and thus make it more likely that his disapproving brother would aid him.

As appellant notes, out-of-court statements from a co-defendant that are against the declarant’s penal interest but also inculpate the defendant are viewed with some suspicion.66 That suspicion is lessened when the speaker makes no distinction between his conduct and that of the defendant — where there is absolute equality.67 That is precisely why this Court upheld the admission of the co-defendant’s statements in Dewbem'y — they were all “we” statements which inculpated the declarant and the defendant equally.68 However, when the declarant minimizes his culpability and shifts major blame to a cohort, the self-serving aspect of the statement generally outweighs the self-inculpa-tory aspect. That is precisely why this Court found error in the admission of the declarant’s blame-shifting statements in Guidry.69

The factual scenario here mirrors that in Guidry. In that case, as in the present one, the declarant co-defendant’s statements were not equally against his and the defendant’s interests.70 Though some statements referred to their joint conduct, on the critical issue of who actually pulled the trigger, Prystash, the co-defendant, said Guidry alone was responsible.71 Prys-tash essentially said that he was only the driver while Guidry did the dirty work. Likewise, Markel told Roderick how he waited in the hallway while appellant twice went into the Outback office alone, getting the money on the first trip and killing the three employees on the second. In Gui-dry, as in the present case, the statements were not made to law enforcement — Prys-tash was speaking to his girlfriend while Markel was speaking to his brother. The factual similarities lead to similar results. Here, as in Guidry, the portions of the co-defendant declarant’s statements that shift blame to the defendant are not sufficiently against the co-defendant’s interest to qualify for admission under Rule 803(24).72

Finally, the State argues that the reliability of all of Markel’s statements are pedigreed by overwhelming corroborating circumstances. But corroborating circumstances relate to the second foundation *900prong,73 not the first, which looks solely to the self-incriminating character of each statement.

We therefore conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting Markel’s narrative in toto without examining each fact asserted in the narrative to assess whether that fact was directly self-incriminating or, at a minimum, shared blame equally. The trial court erred in admitting those particular statements by Markel that shifted blame to appellant. Because the parties have not yet had an opportunity to brief the question of whether this error was harmful or not, we reverse and remand the case to the court of appeals to conduct such a review under Tex.R.App. P. 44.2(b).

dissenting in which KELLER, P.J., and KEASLER, J., joined.

I respectfully dissent. I would decide that “blame-shifting” out-of-court statements that are supported by corroborating circumstances clearly indicating their trustworthiness are “gold standard” statements that should not be thrown out with the dross.

Adopting the approach set out in Dean McCormick’s evidence treatise, the majority opinion decides that “blame-shifting” statements that are within a generally self-inculpatory narrative do not satisfy the first-stage foundational requirement for the “against interest” hearsay rule exception under Texas law. See Maj. op. at 892 n. 31, 19. Thus, if a declarant’s out-of-court statement, “Stephon and I robbed the bank, but Stephon killed the bank teller,” is offered against Stephon in Stephen’s criminal prosecution for this conduct, the statement that “Stephon killed the bank teller” would be excluded even if this statement is clearly supported by other indicia of reliability such as, for example, a videotape depicting the event. I do not believe that this is what the drafters of Texas’ “against interest” hearsay rule exception intended.

I disagree with the majority opinion that the federal and Texas “against interest” hearsay rule exceptions are “quite similar.” See Maj. op. at 892-93 n. 36, 894 n. 48. These exceptions (particularly their second sentences) are very different. Fed. R.Evid. 804(b)(3) allows admission 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 declar-ant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. A statement tending to expose the de-clarant to criminal liability and offered to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.

(Emphasis supplied).

Tex.R. Evid. 803(24) allows admission 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 declar-ant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing it to be true. In criminal cases, a statement tending to expose the declarant to criminal liability is not admissible unless corroborating *901circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement.

Therefore, in cases like this, when an “against interest” out-of-court statement is offered to inculpate the accused, the federal rule literally requires only the first-stage foundational requirement. Thus, such a statement may be admitted under federal rule 804(b)(3) without even considering whether there are corroborating circumstances that clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement. This is not so under Texas rule 808(24), which would exclude this statement that federal rule 804(b)(8) would admit, unless the “corroborating circumstances” second-stage foundational requirement is met.1 This “corroborating circumstances” reliability-enhancing feature of Texas rule 803(24) directly addresses and cures the reliability concerns expressed in the various plurality opinions in Williamson v. United States2, and justifies the adoption for Texas practice of Dean Wigmore’s more expansive approach to the admissibility of “blame-shifting” statements that are within a generally self-inculpatory narrative. See Maj. op. at 892 n. 31 (discussing the Wigmore, McCormick and Jefferson evidence treatises); see also Williamson, 512 U.S. at 611-12, 114 S.Ct. 2431 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment) (same).3

The majority opinion points out that “most” federal courts have judicially legislated a “corroborating circumstances” foundational requirement into federal rule 804(b)(3) for out-of-court “against interest” statements offered to inculpate an accused. See Maj. op. at 892-93 n. 36.4 Apparently, *902this is meant to demonstrate that Texas rule 804(23) and federal rule 804(b)(3), at least in those federal cases where this judicially legislated “corroborating circumstances” foundational requirement would apply, are similar enough that Williamson should be considered persuasive authority in construing Texas rule 803(24).5 That “most” or “some” federal courts have judicially legislated this “corroborating circumstances” foundational requirement into federal rule 804(b)(3) does not, in my view, compel a conclusion that we should follow Williamson and automatically exclude reliable “blame-shifting” statements, particularly since the Supreme Court in Williamson left open the question of whether this “corroborating circumstances” requirement should be judicially incorporated into federal rule 804(b)(3). In the final analysis, the majority opinion excludes reliable evidence without demonstrating why the “corroborating circumstances” requirement under Texas rule 804(23) is not a sufficient guard against the use of unreliable “blame-shifting” statements when, according to the majority opinion, it is a sufficient guard against the use of unreliable “blame-sharing” statements.6

A final point should be made concerning the practicalities of the Court’s decision. It would seem that the erroneous admission into evidence of a “blame-shifting” statement will almost always be harmless if this statement is supported by “corroborating circumstances.” This should weigh in favor of deciding that Texas rule 804(23) should be interpreted to permit the admission of “blame-shifting” statements. It would seem more practical to take into consideration the existence of “corroborating circumstances” in deciding whether a “blame-shifting” statement is admissible than taking these circumstances into account in deciding whether its admission is harmless.

I respectfully dissent.