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Timestamp: 2019-04-26 11:39:25+00:00

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JASON LUDKE and YOSVANY PADILLA-CONDE, Defendants.
On October 6, 2017, defendant Jason Ludke filed a motion to sever his trial from the trial of his co-defendant, Yosvany Padilla-Conde. (Docket # 40.) Ludke argued that the admission at his trial of Padilla-Conde's post-arrest statements would violate Ludke's right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him in violation of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968). The government responded, arguing that severance was not required because Padilla-Conde's statements could be redacted to comply with Bruton and its progeny. Given the fact intensive nature of the Bruton inquiry, I reserved ruling on Ludke's motion to sever, allowing the government an opportunity to submit its proposed redacted statements. The government has now submitted its proposed redacted statements and Ludke has responded. Padilla-Conde has also filed a response to the government's redactions. After careful consideration of the government's proposed redactions and the arguments of the parties, I will grant Ludke's motion for severance and order the defendants to be tried separately.
The question before me is whether the government's proposed redactions of Padilla-Conde's post-arrest statements would violate Ludke's right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him under Bruton and its progeny. In the original order, I discussed Bruton and its progeny, which I will briefly repeat here. (Docket # 49 at 4-5.) Under Bruton, admission of a co-defendant's confession inculpating the defendant at a joint trial where the co-defendant does not testify violates the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confrontation as he is precluded from cross-examination. 391 U.S. at 127-28.
In Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 211 (1987), the Court held that “the Confrontation Clause is not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession with a proper limiting instruction when, as here, the confession is redacted to eliminate not only the defendant's name, but any reference to his or her existence.” The Marsh Court found that the Sixth Amendment was not violated when a confession is not incriminating on its face and only becomes incriminating when linked with evidence introduced later at trial. Id. at 208. The Marsh Court “express[ed] no opinion on the admissibility of a confession in which the defendant's name has been replaced with a symbol or neutral pronoun.” Id. at 211 n.5.
Finally, in Gray v. Maryland, however, the Court clarified that Bruton problems are not avoided simply by deleting from a confession the co-defendant's name or by merely inserting in place of the co-defendant's name a symbol, such as the word “deleted.” 523 U.S. 185, 197 (1998). The Court noted that this insert was actually “facially incrimin[ating]” because the word “deleted” still pointed to specific people. Id. at 196-97. Thus, “[a]fter Richardson and Gray, it is clear that a redacted confession may be admitted as long as the redaction does not obviously refer to the co-defendants.” United States v. Hernandez, 330 F.3d 964, 973 (7th Cir. 2003). In other words, “[s]tatements that ‘despite redaction, obviously refer directly to someone, often obviously the defendant, and which involve inferences that a jury ordinarily could make immediately' are prohibited under Bruton.” United States v. Green, 648 F.3d 569, 575 (7th Cir. 2011) (quoting Gray, 523 U.S. at 196).
The first statement the government seeks to admit is an FBI interview report summarizing Padilla-Conde's statement on October 6, 2016. Exhibit 1A is the unredacted version of the statement and Exhibit 1B is the redacted version. (Docket # 60-1, # 60-2.) In this statement, Padilla-Conde states that he and Ludke have known each other for approximately eleven years and while traveling together south, Padilla-Conde would use his phone to search for mosques along the way and would ask permission to sleep overnight in the parking lot. The statement describes how Ludke watches online video speeches from Anwar Awlawki and has become convinced that he should travel to Iraq or Yemen for Jihad. Ludke emails an unnamed individual about joining ISIL and once Ludke and Padilla-Conde reach Laredo, Texas, this individual was supposed to facilitate their border crossing into Mexico and subsequent travel to Iraq or Yemen. Padilla-Conde stated that on their drive south, he tried to convince Ludke to “back away from all this” and that he intended to abandon Ludke's plan to travel overseas once reaching Mexico. Padilla-Conde stated he intended to stay with an ex-girlfriend's grandparents in Mexico.
As to Padilla-Conde's first statement, the government redacts almost all of the statements regarding Ludke and the specifics of their plans to travel to Mexico. The redacted statement leaves in the fact that Ludke and Padilla-Conde have known each other for eleven years and are traveling “south” together, calling mosques along the way so they can sleep in the mosque's parking lot. The statement includes the fact that Ludke and Padilla-Conde's trip continues to Denton, Texas, where they met up with a friend.
Again, Bruton is implicated by, “only those statements that ‘expressly implicate' the defendant or are ‘powerfully incriminating'” Green, 648 F.3d at 576 (quoting Marsh, 481 U.S. at 208)). Generally, disputes about whether testimony “expressly implicates” or “powerfully incriminates” a defendant arise where the co-defendant's original statement describes the defendant engaging in conduct that is clearly criminal, but the version presented to the jury removes any reference to the defendant or replaces such references with an indefinite pronoun. That is not the situation with Padilla-Conde's first statement. The statement still names Ludke outright (although his name is redacted in other parts of the statement). The question is whether the statement associates Ludke with criminal or incriminating conduct; specifically, whether the passages in question name Ludke in a way that “‘expressly implicates' or ‘powerfully incriminates' him with respect to the offenses charged.” United States v. Daniels, No. 3:11-CR-4 JD, 2012 WL 243607, at *3 (N.D. Ind. Jan. 25, 2012) (citing Green, 648 F.3d at 576).
Unlike the redacted version of Padilla-Conde's statement (Exhibit 1B), the redacted version of Padilla-Conde's interview (Exhibit 2B) completely redacts Ludke's name. However, the statement makes clear that Padilla-Conde was traveling with someone else to Mexico, in order to travel to the Middle East and join ISIL. (See, e.g., Docket # 60-4 at 41(“Hey, in the vehicle you guys were driving, was there anything, you know, and I know it's his vehicle . . . .”; Docket # 60-4 at 30 “Who's driving? I, I, I was driving. . . .”). Again, given the specific allegations in this case, despite the redaction, the statement obviously refers directly to Ludke, Padilla-Conde's co-defendant, who was expressly named in the first statement. For these reasons, the government's redactions to Exhibits 1 and 2 do not protect Ludke's rights under Bruton.

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