Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/22-899_97be.pdf
Page Number: 42.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

11 

ALITO, J., concurring in judgment 

384 U. S. 436 (1966), could be introduced to impeach that
defendant’s  credibility,  so  long  as  the  jury  was  instructed 
not to consider them as evidence of his guilt.  In Walder v. 
United States, 347 U. S. 62 (1954), the Court affirmed the 
use of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amend-
ment for impeachment when the trial court had “carefully
charged the jury” that it could not be considered evidence of 
guilt.  Id., at 64.  In Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554 (1967),
the Court upheld the admission of evidence of the defend-
ant’s prior criminal convictions for the purpose of sentence
enhancement,  provided  that  the  jury  was  instructed  that 
this evidence could not be used in determining guilt.   
In 
Watkins  v.  Sowders,  449  U. S.  341  (1981),  the  Court  pre-
sumed  that  a  jury  could  properly  evaluate  an  eyewitness 
identification  “under  the  instructions  of  the  trial  judge.” 
Id., at 347.  And in Tennessee v. Street, 471 U. S. 409 (1985), 
the  Court  approved  the  admission  of  an  accomplice’s  in-
criminating  confession  given  the  “pointe[d]  instruct[ions] 
[of] the trial court ‘not to consider the truthfulness of [the 
confession] in any way whatsoever.’ ”  Id., at 414–415. 

Most recently in Samia, we held that a limiting instruc-
tion was sufficient to defeat a Confrontation Clause claim. 
In  that  homicide  case,  evidence  showed  that  Samia  had 
traveled with his codefendant Stillwell to the Philippines to
commit a murder for hire.  Samia, 599 U. S., at 640.  The 
trial  court  admitted  Stillwell’s  confession,  which,  as  re-
dacted, stated that he was in a van with some “other per-
son ” when that person shot the victim, but the court told
the jury that the confession could be considered only for the 
purpose  of  determining  whether  Stillwell  himself  was 
guilty.  Id., at 642.  Samia argued that admitting the con-
fession even with the limiting instruction would inevitably
prejudice  him  because  “other  evidence  and  statements  at 
trial enabled the jury to immediately infer that the ‘other
person’  described  in  the  confession  was  Samia  him-
self.”  Ibid.  Nevertheless, we presumed that the jury was