Opinion ID: 2507
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Gray v. Maryland

Text: In 1998, the Supreme Court decided Gray v. Maryland , in which it considered whether Bruton's protective rule applied to the admission at a joint trial of a redacted confession in which the non-declarant defendant's name was replaced with a blank space or the word `deleted.' 523 U.S. at 188, 118 S.Ct. 1151. Concluding that such a clumsy redaction was inadequate to avoid Bruton 's Confrontation Clause concern, the Court explained: Redactions that simply replace a name with ... obvious indications of alteration ... leave statements that, considered as a class, so closely resemble Bruton 's unredacted statements that, in our view, the law must require the same result. Id. at 192, 118 S.Ct. 1151. In distinguishing such unsatisfactory redactions from the type approved in Richardson, the Supreme Court did not draw a bright line between redactions that eliminated any reference to a co-defendant's existence, as in Richardson, and those that did not. Rather, it focused on the inference (or link) that would be necessary for the jury to connect the redacted statement to the co-defendant. See id. at 195-96, 118 S.Ct. 1151. The Court observed that Richardson 's inferences involved statements that did not refer directly to the defendant himself and which became incriminating only when linked with evidence introduced later at trial. The inferences at issue here [in Gray ] involve statements that, despite redaction, obviously refer directly to someone, often obviously the defendant, and which involve inferences that a jury ordinarily could make immediately, even were the confession the very first item introduced at trial. Id. at 196, 118 S.Ct. 1151 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). While thus concluding that replacing a defendant's name with an obvious blank or deleted reference was insufficient to avoid Bruton error, the Supreme Court indicated that substituting neutral words might well pass constitutional muster. Discussing the unsatisfactory redaction of a statement that named names to Me, deleted, deleted, and a few other guys, the Court asked, Why could the witness not, instead, have said:.... `Me and a few other guys.' Id.