Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/391/123/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 09:57:08+00:00

Document:
A joint trial of petitioner and one Evans resulted in the convictions of both for armed postal robbery. Evans did not take the stand, but a postal inspector testified that Evans confessed orally that he and petitioner committed the robbery. The trial judge instructed the jury that, although Evans' confession was competent evidence against him it was inadmissible hearsay against petitioner and had to be disregarded in determining petitioner's guilt or innocence. Evans and petitioner both appealed to the Court of Appeals. That court set aside Evans' conviction on the ground that the oral confession should not have been received against him, but affirmed petitioner's conviction in view of the trial judge's instructions, relying on Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232.
Held: Because of the substantial risk that the jury, despite instructions to the contrary, looked to the incriminating extrajudicial statements in determining petitioner's guilt, admission of Evans' confession in the joint trial violated petitioner's right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. Delli Paoli v. United States, supra, overruled. Pp. 391 U. S. 126-137.
although the jury was instructed that a codefendant's confession inculpating the defendant had to be disregarded in determining his guilt or innocence.
"in the light of the record in this particular case and in the interests of justice, the judgment below should be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial."
acquitted. To argue, in this situation, that [petitioner's] conviction should nevertheless stand may be to place too great a strain upon the [Delli Paoli] rule at least, where, as here, the other evidence against [petitioner] is not strong."
We have concluded, however, that Delli Paoli should be overruled. We hold that, because of the substantial risk that the jury, despite instructions to the contrary, looked to the incriminating extrajudicial statements in determining petitioner's guilt, admission of Evans' confession in this joint trial violated petitioner's right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. We therefore overrule Delli Paoli and reverse.
"a major reason underlying the constitutional confrontation rule is to give a defendant charged with crime an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him."
Id. at 380 U. S. 406-407.
"effective confrontation of Loyd was possible only if Loyd affirmed the statement as his. However, Loyd did not do so, but relied on his privilege to refuse to answer."
"Although the Solicitor's reading of Loyd's alleged statement, and Loyd's refusals to answer, were not technically testimony, the Solicitor's reading may well have been the equivalent in the jury's mind of testimony that Loyd, in fact, made the statement, and Loyd's reliance upon the privilege created a situation in which the jury might improperly infer both that the statement had been made and that it was true."
Evans' confession added substantial, perhaps even critical, weight to the Government's case in a form not subject to cross-examination, since Evans did not take the stand. Petitioner thus was denied his constitutional right of confrontation.
before submitting it to the jury for an assessment of its credibility. More specifically, we expressly rejected the proposition that a jury, when determining the confessor's guilt, could be relied on to ignore his confession of guilt should it find the confession involuntary. Id. at 378 U. S. 388-389. Significantly, we supported that conclusion in part by reliance upon the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Frankfurter for the four Justices who dissented in Delli Paoli. Id. at 378 U. S. 388, n. 15.
That dissent challenged the basic premise of Delli Paoli that a properly instructed jury would ignore the confessor's inculpation of the nonconfessor in determining the latter's guilt.
"The fact of the matter is that, too often, such admonition against misuse is intrinsically ineffective, in that the effect of such a nonadmissible declaration cannot be wiped from the brains of the jurors. The admonition therefore becomes a futile collocation of words, and fails of its purpose as a legal protection to defendants against whom such a declaration should not tell."
"The government should not have the windfall of having the jury be influenced by evidence against a defendant which, as a matter of law, they should not consider, but which they cannot put out of their minds."
"The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury . . . all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction. . . . [Footnote 4] "
"Although Jackson was directly concerned with obviating any risk that a jury might rely on an unconstitutionally obtained confession in determining the defendant's guilt, its logic extends to obviating the risks that the jury may rely on any inadmissible statements. If it is a denial of due process to rely on a jury's presumed ability to disregard an involuntary confession, it may also be a denial of due process to rely on a jury's presumed ability to disregard a codefendant's confession implicating another defendant when it is determining that defendant's guilt or innocence."
disregard a confession it found to be involuntary. If it made such a finding, then the confession was presumably out of the case. In joint trials, however, when the admissible confession of one defendant inculpates another defendant, the confession is never deleted from the case and the jury is expected to perform the overwhelming task of considering it in determining the guilt or innocence of the declarant and then of ignoring it in determining the guilt or innocence of any codefendants of the declarant. A jury cannot 'segregate evidence into separate intellectual boxes.' . . . It cannot determine that a confession is true insofar as it admits that A has committed criminal acts with B and at the same time effectively ignore the inevitable conclusion that B has committed those same criminal acts with A. [Footnote 5]"
court may order the attorney for the government to deliver to the court for inspection in camera any statements or confessions made by the defendants which the government intends to introduce in evidence at the trial."
"A defendant may be prejudiced by the admission in evidence against a codefendant of a statement or confession made by that codefendant. This prejudice cannot be dispelled by cross-examination if the codefendant does not take the stand. Limiting instructions to the jury may not, in fact, erase the prejudice. . . ."
"The purpose of the amendment is to provide a procedure whereby the issue of possible prejudice can be resolved on the motion for severance. . . . [Footnote 7]"
right of confrontation. [Footnote 10] Where viable alternatives do exist, it is deceptive to rely on the pursuit of truth to defend a clearly harmful practice.
by a legalistic formula, required of the judge, that the jury may not consider any admissions against any party who did not join in them. We secure greater speed, economy and convenience in the administration of the law at the price of fundamental principles of constitutional liberty. That price is too high."
Finally, the reason advanced by the majority in Delli Paoli was to tie the result to maintenance of the jury system.
"Unless we proceed on the basis that the jury will follow the court's instructions where those instructions are clear and the circumstances are such that the jury can reasonably be expected to follow them, the jury system makes little sense."
"substantial threats to a defendant's constitutional rights to have an involuntary confession entirely disregarded and to have the coercion issue fairly and reliably determined. These hazards we cannot ignore."
378 U.S. at 378 U. S. 389. Here, the introduction of Evans' confession posed a substantial threat to petitioner's right to confront the witnesses against him, and this is a hazard we cannot ignore. Despite the concededly clear instructions to the jury to disregard Evans' inadmissible hearsay evidence inculpating petitioner, in the context of a joint trial we cannot accept limiting instructions as an adequate substitute for petitioner's constitutional right of cross-examination. The effect is the same as if there had been no instruction at all. See Anderson v. United States, 318 U. S. 350, 318 U. S. 356-357; cf. Burgett v. Texas, 389 U. S. 109, 389 U. S. 115.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs in the result for the reasons stated in the dissent in Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232, 352 U. S. 46.
The trial began June 20, 1966, one week after the decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436. T he Court of Appeals held, 375 F.2d at 357, that Miranda and its companion cases were therefore applicable and controlling on the question of the admissibility in evidence of the postal inspector's testimony as to Evans' admissions. Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U. S. 719. On April 8, 1966, St. Louis police officers, without giving Evans preliminary warnings of any kind and in the absence of counsel, obtained an oral confession during an interrogation at the city jail. The police informed the postal inspector, who interrogated Evans at the jail on April 11 and May 4, 1966; he obtained the oral confession expressly implicating petitioner on the latter date. On the merits, the Court of Appeals held, 375 F.2d at 361, that Evans' admissions to the postal inspector "were tainted and infected by the poison of the prior, concededly unconstitutional confession obtained by the local officer," and were therefore inadmissible under Westover v. United States, decided with Miranda, 384 U.S. at 384 U. S. 494-497. On the retrial, Evans was acquitted.
"if used, can only be used against the defendant Evans. It is hearsay insofar as the defendant George William Bruton is concerned, and you are not to consider it in any respect to the defendant Bruton, because, insofar as he is concerned, it is hearsay."
"A confession made outside of court by one defendant may not be considered as evidence against the other defendant, who was not present and in no way a party to the confession. Therefore, if you find that a confession was, in fact, voluntarily and intentionally made by the defendant Evans, you should consider it as evidence in the case against Evans, but you must not consider it, and should disregard it, in considering the evidence in the case against the defendant Bruton."
"It is your duty to give separate, personal consideration to the cause of each individual defendant. When you do so, you should analyze what the evidence shows with respect to that individual, leaving out of consideration entirely any evidence admitted solely against some other defendant. Each defendant is entitled to have his case determined from his own acts and statements and the other evidence in the case which may be applicable to him."
We emphasize that the hearsay statement inculpating petitioner was clearly inadmissible against him under traditional rules of evidence, see Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440; Fiswick v. United States, 329 U. S. 211, the problem arising only because the statement was (but for the violation of Westover, supra, n 1) admissible against the declarant Evans. See C. McCormick, Evidence § 239 (1954); 4 J. Wigmore, Evidence §§ 1048-1049 (3d ed.1940); Morgan, Admissions as an Exception to the Hearsay Rule, 30 Yale L.J. 355 (1921). See generally Levie, Hearsay and Conspiracy, 52 Mich.L.Rev. 1159 (1954); Comment, Post-Conspiracy Admissions in Joint Prosecutions, 24 U.Chi.L.Rev. 710 (1957); Note, Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv.L.Rev. 920, 984-990 (1959). There is not before us, therefore, any recognized exception to the hearsay rule insofar as petitioner is concerned and we intimate no view whatever that such exceptions necessarily raise questions under the Confrontation Clause. See Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400; Barber v. Page, 390 U. S. 719; Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237. See generally McCormick, supra, § 224; 5 Wigmore, supra, §§ 1362-1365, 1397; Morgan, Hearsay Dangers and the Application of the Hearsay Concept, 62 Harv.L.Rev. 177 (1948).
"It is impossible realistically to suppose that, when the twelve good men and women had Jones' confession in the privacy of the jury room, not one yielded to the nigh irresistible temptation to fill in the blanks with the keys Kuhle had provided and ask himself the intelligent question to what extent Jones' statement supported Kuhle's testimony, or that, if anyone did yield, his colleagues effectively persuaded him to dismiss the answers from his mind."
State decisions which have rejected Delli Paoli include People v. Aranda, 63 Cal.2d 518, 407 P.2d 265; State v. Young, 46 N.J. 152, 215 A.2d 352. See also People v. Barbaro, 395 Ill. 264, 69 N.E.2d 692; State v. Rosen, 151 Ohio St. 339, 86 N.E.2d 24.
It has been suggested that the limiting instruction actually compounds the jury's difficulty in disregarding the inadmissible hearsay. See Broeder, The University of Chicago Jury Project, 38 Neb.L.Rev. 744, 753-755 (1959).
"Indeed, we have expressly declared that to deprive an accused of the right to cross-examine the witnesses against him is a denial of the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process of law."
Joinder of defendants is governed by Rules 8(b) and 14 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
"The rules are designed to promote economy and efficiency and to avoid a multiplicity of trials, where these objectives can be achieved without substantial prejudice to the right of the defendants to a fair trial."
Dale v. United States, 231 F.2d 123, 125. An important element of a fair trial is that a jury consider only relevant and competent evidence bearing on the issue of guilt or innocence. See, e.g., Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U. S. 539, 332 U. S. 559-560.
"is a kind of 'judicial lie': it undermines a moral relationship between the courts, the jurors, and the public; like any other judicial deception, it damages the decent judicial administration of justice."
United States v. Grunewald, 233 F.2d 556, 574. See also 8 Wigmore, supra, n 3, § 2272, at 416.
"treating them at times as a group of low-grade morons, and at other times as men endowed with a superhuman ability to control their emotions and intellects."
See also Shepard v. United States, 290 U. S. 96, 290 U. S. 104; Meltzer, Involuntary Confessions: The Allocation of Responsibility Between Judge and Jury, 21 U.Chi.L.Rev. 317, 326 (1954).
"When, however, the confession implicating both defendants is not admissible at all, there is no longer room for compromise. The risk of prejudicing the nonconfessing defendant can no longer be justified by the need for introducing the confession against the one who made it. Accordingly, we have held that the erroneous admission into evidence of a confession implicating both defendants is not necessarily cured by an instruction that it is to be considered only against the declarant."
See also Jones v. United States and Greenwell v. United States, both supra, n 4.
Some courts have required deletion of references to codefendants where practicable. See, e.g., Oliver v. United States, 335 F.2d 724; People v. Vitagliano, 15 N.Y.2d 360, 206 N.E.2d 864; People v. La Belle, 18 N.Y.2d 405, 222 N.E.2d 727. For criticisms suggesting that deletions (redaction) from the confession are ineffective, see, e.g., Note, 72 Harv.L.Rev. 920, 990 (1959); Comment, 24 U.Chi.L.Rev. 710, 713 (1957); Note, 74 Yale L.J. 553, 564 (1965).
"Where the confession is offered in evidence by means of oral testimony, redaction is patently impractical. To expect a witness to relate X's confession without including any of its references to Y is to ignore human frailty. Again, it is unlikely that an intentional or accidental slip by the witness could be remedied by instructions to disregard."
Note, 3 Col.J. of Law & Soc.Prob. 80, 88 (1967).
Some courts have promulgated rules governing the use of the confessions. See n 4, supra. See also rules suggested by Judge Frank, dissenting in Delli Paoli v. United States, 229 F.2d 319, 324.
See Crawford v. United States, 212 U. S. 183, 212 U. S. 24; Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 242 U. S. 495; Stoneking v. United States, 232 F.2d 385.
"inadmissible hearsay, a presumptively unreliable out-of-court statement of a nonparty who was not a witness subject to cross-examination."
Post at 391 U. S. 138.
"The theory of the Hearsay rule is that the many possible deficiencies, suppressions, sources of error and untrustworthiness, which lie underneath the bare untested assertion of a witness, may he best brought to light and exposed by the test of Cross-examination."
5 Wigmore, Evidence § 1362, at 3. The reason for excluding this evidence as an evidentiary matter also requires its exclusion as a constitutional matter. Surely the suggestion is not that Pointer v. Texas, for example, be repudiated and that all hearsay evidence be admissible so long as the jury is properly instructed to weigh it in light of "all the dangers of inaccuracy which characterize hearsay generally." Post at 391 U. S. 141.
I join the opinion and judgment of the Court. Although I did not agree with the decision in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (see id. at 378 U. S. 427), I accept its holding and share the Court's conclusion that it compels the overruling of Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232.
statement of a codefendant, who is not subject to cross-examination, is deliberately placed before the jury at a joint trial. A basic premise of the Confrontation Clause, it seems to me, is that certain kinds of hearsay (see, e.g., Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400; Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415) are at once so damaging, so suspect, and yet so difficult to discount, that jurors cannot be trusted to give such evidence the minimal weight it logically deserves, whatever instructions the trial judge might give. See the Court's opinion, ante at 391 U. S. 136, n. 12. It is for this very reason that an out-of-court accusation is universally conceded to be constitutionally inadmissible against the accused, rather than admissible for the little it may be worth. Even if I did not consider Jackson v. Denno controlling, therefore, I would still agree that Delli Paoli must be overruled.
Whether or not Evans' confession was inadmissible against him, nothing in that confession which was relevant and material to Bruton's case was admissible against Bruton. As to him, it was inadmissible hearsay, a presumptively unreliable out-of-court statement of a nonparty who was not a witness subject to cross-examination. Admitting Evans' confession against Bruton would require a new trial unless the error was harmless.
Contrary to its ruling just a decade ago in Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232 (1957), the Court now holds this instruction insufficient, and reverses Bruton's conviction. It would apparently also reverse every other case where a court admits a codefendant's confession implicating a defendant, regardless of cautionary instructions and regardless of the circumstances. I dissent from this excessively rigid rule. There is nothing in this record to suggest that the jury did not follow the trial judge's instructions. There has been no new learning since Delli Paoli indicating that juries are less reliable than they were considered in that case to be. There is nothing in the prior decisions of this Court which supports this new constitutional rule.
Ante at 391 U. S. 135. The Court asserts, however, that the hazards to the defendant of permitting the jury to hear a codefendant's confession implicating him are so severe that we must assume the jury's inability to heed a limiting instruction. This was the holding of the Court with respect to a confession of the defendant himself in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368 (1964). There are good reasons, however, for distinguishing the codefendant's confession from that of the defendant himself, and for trusting in the jury's ability to disregard the former when instructed to do so.
direct evidence of the facts to which it relates. Even the testimony of an eyewitness may be less reliable than the defendant's own confession. An observer may not correctly perceive, understand, or remember the acts of another, but the admissions of a defendant come from the actor himself, the most knowledgeable and unimpeachable source of information about his past conduct. Certainly, confessions have profound impact on the jury, so much so that we may justifiably doubt its ability to put them out of mind even if told to do so. This was the conclusion of the Court in Jackson, and I continue to believe that case to be sound law.
"[i]t is now axiomatic that a defendant in a criminal case is deprived of due process of law if his conviction is founded, in whole or in part, upon an involuntary confession, without regard for the truth or falsity of the confession. . . ."
an adjunct to the ascertainment of truth. That privilege, like the guarantees of the Fourth Amendment, stands as a protection of quite different constitutional values. . . ."
The exclusion of probative evidence in order to serve other ends is sound jurisprudence but, as the Court concluded in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. at 378 U. S. 382, juries would have great difficulty in understanding that policy, in putting the confession aside, and in finding the confession involuntary if the consequence was that it could not be used in considering a defendant's guilt or innocence.
value than ordinary hearsay, the codefendant's confession implicating the defendant is intrinsically much less reliable.
The defendant's own confession may not be used against him if coerced, not because it is untrue, but to protect other constitutional values. The jury may have great difficulty understanding such a rule and following an instruction to disregard the confession. In contrast, the codefendant's admissions cannot enter into the determination of the defendant's guilt or innocence because they are unreliable. This the jury can be told and can understand. Just as the Court believes that juries can reasonably be expected to disregard ordinary hearsay or other inadmissible evidence when instructed to do so, I believe juries will disregard the portions of a codefendant's confession implicating the defendant when so instructed. Indeed, if we must pick and choose between hearsay as to which limiting instructions will be deemed effective and hearsay the admission of which cannot be cured by instructions, codefendants' admissions belong in the former category, rather than the latter, for they are not only hearsay, but hearsay which is doubly suspect. If the Court is right in believing that a jury can be counted on to ignore a wide range of hearsay statements which it is told to ignore, it seems very odd to me to question its ability to put aside the codefendant's hearsay statements about what the defendant did.
men. Because I have no doubt that serious-minded and responsible men are able to shut their minds to unreliable information when exercising their judgment, I reject the assumption of the majority that giving instructions to a jury to disregard a codefendant's confession is an empty gesture.
use the confession at all or to try the defendants separately. To save time, money, and effort, the Government might best seek a ruling at the earliest possible stage of the trial proceedings as to whether the confession is admissible once offending portions are deleted. The failure of the Government to adopt and follow proper procedures for insuring that the inadmissible portions of confessions are excluded will be relevant to the question of whether it was harmless error for them to have gotten before the jury. Oral statements, such as that involved in the present case, will present special problems, for there is a risk that the witness in testifying will inadvertently exceed permissible limits. Except for recommending that caution be used with regard to such oral statements, it is difficult to anticipate the issues which will arise in concrete factual situations.
I would hope, but am not sure, that, by using these procedures, the federal courts would escape reversal under today's ruling. Even so, I persist in believing that the reversal of Delli Paoli unnecessarily burdens the already difficult task of conducting criminal trials, and therefore I dissent in this case.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN joins this opinion without abandoning his original disagreement with Jackson v. Denno, 378 U. S. 368, 378 U. S. 427, expressed in his dissenting opinion in that case.
* As the Court observes, "[i]f . . . the jury disregarded the reference to the codefendant, no question would arise under the Confrontation Clause. . . ." Ante at 391 U. S. 126. Because, in my view, juries can reasonably be relied upon to disregard the codefendant's references to the defendant, there is no need to explore the special considerations involved in the Confrontation Clause.

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