Opinion ID: 781722
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Yousef's Motion to Sever

Text: 353 Prior to trial, Yousef moved before the District Court either to sever his trial from that of Ismoil or to select two separate juries on the ground that the admission of Ismoil's post-arrest statement, which identified Yousef as a participant in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, would violate his right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. See Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 126, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968) (holding that admission of confession directly inculpating codefendant in joint trial violated codefendant's confrontation rights). The statement did not mention Yousef's name, but it did identify Abdul-Basit 67 as a former neighbor who had contacted Ismoil when Ismoil was in Dallas. Yousef used the name Abdul-Basit as an alias, as is set forth in the caption of the indictment. Ismoil's statement named Abdul-Basit four times, but referred to him more frequently as he or him. In the statement, Ismoil asserted that it was Abdul-Basit who had duped him to go to New York and participate in the bombing conspiracy. In addition, the statement described Abdul-Basit as tall a little, thin, dark, wears glasses, his hair is black. In his motion, Yousef argued that introduction of the statement at trial would be prejudicial and would violate his confrontation rights. See id. 354 The District Court denied the motion to sever but ordered that the statement be redacted to eliminate any direct reference to Abdul-Basit. The redacted version of Ismoil's statement that was admitted at trial replaced the first reference to Abdul-Basit with the words my neighbor, and omitted the other references altogether. 355 On appeal, Yousef claims that the District Court erred in denying his motion for severance or separate juries, arguing that (1) the substitution of neighbor for the name Abdel-Basset [sic] in the redacted statement was insufficient to protect his rights under Bruton ; (2) he was prejudiced by statements made by the Government and Ismoil's counsel at trial that impermissibly suggested that Yousef was the neighbor to whom Ismoil referred in his statement; and (3) the trials should have been severed because Ismoil's duped defense was mutually antagonistic to Yousef's defense that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he participated in the bombing. 356 Rule 14 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure permits a district court to grant a severance of defendants if it appears that a defendant ... is prejudiced by a joinder ... of defendants ... for trial together. Under the rule, the decision to sever a joint trial is committed to the sound discretion of the trial judge. United States v. Blount, 291 F.3d 201, 209 (2d Cir.2002) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). [T]here is a preference, in the federal system, for the joint trial of defendants indicted together, United States v. Rosa, 11 F.3d 315, 341 (2d Cir.1993), and thus, a district court order denying a Rule 14 motion is considered virtually unreviewable and will be overturned only if a defendant can show prejudice so severe that his conviction constituted a miscarriage of justice and that the denial of his motion constituted an abuse of discretion. United States v. Diaz, 176 F.3d 52, 102 (2d Cir.1999) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). [A] district court should grant a severance under Rule 14 only if there is a serious risk that a joint trial would compromise a specific trial right of one of the defendants, or prevent a jury from making a reliable judgment about guilt or innocence. Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534, 539, 113 S.Ct. 933, 122 L.Ed.2d 317 (1993). Such a risk might occur if evidence inadmissible against one defendant but probative of his guilt is admitted against a codefendant, or if exculpatory evidence is excluded due to a codefendant's presence. See id. However, less drastic measures, such as limiting instructions, often will suffice to cure any risk of prejudice. Id. 357 Within this framework, the fashioning of remedial steps to minimize prejudice to a defendant is committed to the sound discretion of the district court. See id. Various remedies short of severance are available to the district court, including, inter alia, issuing limiting instructions to the jury, empaneling separate juries, or redacting out-of-court statements that refer to a codefendant by name. Such redactions are permissible so long as the redaction does not distort the statements' meaning, exclude substantially exculpatory information, or change the tenor of the utterance as a whole. United States v. Alvarado, 882 F.2d 645, 651 (2d Cir.1989) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), overruled on other grounds, Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995); see also United States v. Castro, 813 F.2d 571, 576 (2d Cir.1987). The District Court chose to redact, and we conclude that the District Court acted well within its discretion in so doing. 358 Nothing in the redacted statement, standing by itself, implicated Yousef or made the fact of redaction obvious, thus meeting the requirements set forth in Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 192-93, 196, 118 S.Ct. 1151, 140 L.Ed.2d 294 (1998) (holding that Bruton may be violated if the fact of redaction is obvious). Therefore, admission of the redacted statement did not violate the Bruton doctrine and was not an abuse of discretion. See id. at 192, 118 S.Ct. 1151. 359 As Yousef points out, however, two incidents that occurred during the trial do raise the possibility of prejudice. The first incident occurred when Ismoil's counsel, on cross-examination, sought to elicit from Qablan the fact that Ismoil's written statement referred to Abdul-Basit. We conclude that any prejudice was minimal, however, because the Government's objections to the questions were sustained, the questions were not answered, the questions referred not to Yousef but to one of his many aliases, and the entire incident was but a brief occurrence in a four-month-long trial replete with abundant, independent evidence of Yousef's guilt, including his own confession. Accordingly, this incident failed to show prejudice so severe that [Yousef's] conviction constituted a miscarriage of justice and that the denial of his motion [for severance] constituted an abuse of discretion. Diaz, 176 F.3d at 102 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see United States v. Kirsh, 54 F.3d 1062, 1068 (2d Cir.1995) (no reversal required for Bruton violation where prejudice insignificant in light of overwhelming evidence of guilt); United States v. Williams, 927 F.2d 95, 99 (2d Cir.1991) (harmless error analysis applies to Bruton violations). 360 The second incident involved statements made by the Government during its summation, in which the Government asserted that Ismoil and Yousef had known each other for many years, and that Ismoil was the person whom Yousef had known the longest. Although there was evidence of a long history of telephone calls between the two, we are inclined to agree with Yousef that the inference of long-standing acquaintance could not have been drawn absent Ismoil's post-arrest statement. Nevertheless, in light of the plethora of independent evidence of Yousef's guilt, this incident was insufficient to establish significant prejudice. See Kirsh, 54 F.3d at 1068; Williams, 927 F.2d at 99; see also Salameh I, 152 F.3d at 133 (holding that [a] prosecutor's statements during summation, if improper, will result in a denial of due process rights only if, in the context of the entire summation, they cause the defendant substantial prejudice, and noting that there is no substantial prejudice if there is certainty that the defendant would have been convicted absent the misconduct (quoting United States v. Rivera, 22 F.3d 430, 437 (2d Cir.1994)) (internal quotation marks omitted)). 361 Yousef also argues that severance was warranted because he and Ismoil mounted mutually antagonistic defenses. Defenses are mutually antagonistic when accepting one defense requires that the jury must of necessity convict a second defendant. United States v. Cardascia, 951 F.2d 474, 484 (2d Cir.1991); see also Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 542, 113 S.Ct. 933 (Stevens, J., concurring) (describing mutually antagonistic defenses as those as to which acceptance of one ... necessarily preclude[s] acceptance of the other and acquittal of the codefendant). In Zafiro, the Supreme Court made clear, however, that [m]utually antagonistic defenses are not prejudicial per se  and further noted that Rule 14 does not require severance even if prejudice is shown; rather, it leaves the tailoring of the relief to be granted, if any, to the district court's sound discretion. Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 538-39, 113 S.Ct. 933. The Court concluded that severance would be justified only if there is a serious risk that a joint trial would compromise a specific trial right of one of the defendants, or prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment about guilt. Id. at 539, 113 S.Ct. 933. In this case, Yousef has not articulate[d] any specific instances of prejudice. Instead, [he] contend[s] that the very nature of [his and Ismoil's] defenses, without more, prejudiced [him]—a complaint that Zafiro held presented a risk of prejudice ... of the type that can be cured with proper instructions. Id. at 540, 113 S.Ct. 933. Here, the District Court instructed the jury that 362 the issue of each defendant's guilt is totally personal to the individual defendant. You must make a separate determination as to whether or not any defendant's guilt as to the specific charge has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 363 In making that judgment, you are to disregard entirely the circumstance that two defendants have been tried together 364 .... 365 ... 366 You have also heard testimony of certain statements or admissions made by each of the defendants after each was arrested on these charges. I instruct you that if you find such a statement was made, each of the statements can be used only against the defendant who allegedly made the statement and not against the other defendant. 367 World Trade Center Bombing Trial Transcript (WTr.) at 5474-75, 5494. We hold that these instructions sufficed to cure any possibility of prejudice. Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 541, 113 S.Ct. 933. 368