Opinion ID: 2310530
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Bernard Jackson's Statement

Text: As noted above, Jackson told police, and so testified at trial, that during the escape in the car, Reese stated to him that Lambert had killed two persons during the crime. Jackson's statement was: Toi and the dude got out of the car. I stayed in the car. About 4 minutes later the dude and Tou came running around the corner and jumped into the car. Touche get into the front with me and the dude got in the back. They told me to drive off. So I pulled off driving south towards Baltimore Avenue. . . . As we were going the dude in the back said he had shot somebody. He said he shot 2 people. I said, what for? He said one of the men jumped up at him and he shot him and the other guy tried to help, so he said he shot him, too. I drove right back out to Darby, the girl's house. (T.T., April 13, 1984, p. 116. Dude refers to Appellant Lambert.) Appellant challenges the admissibility of the evidence as being hearsay, as falling outside of the recognized co-conspirator's exception to the hearsay rule because it was not made in furtherance of the conspiracy, and as a violation of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). [7] Because Reese's statement was part of the conspiracy dealing with flight from the scene, it falls within the exception. We decided in Commonwealth v. Coccioletti, 493 Pa. 103, 111, 425 A.2d 387, 391 (1981): A well-established exception to the hearsay rule permits the out-of-court declarations of one co-conspirator to be admitted against another co-conspirator provided that the declarations were made during the conspiracy and in furtherance of the common design. Conspirators are agents of the conspiracy. For similar reasons, the Bruton rule does not apply to these facts. Bruton holds that at a joint trial the admission into evidence of a non-testifying co-defendant's confession which inculpated the other co-defendant being jointly tried with the declarant, violated the other co-defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him, and further that this encroachment on the other co-defendant's constitutional right could not be cured by the formerly approved practice of having the trial judge instruct the jury to disregard the confession or statement in determining the innocence or guilt of every co-defendant except the confessor himself. [8] Under Coccioletti, of course, inculpatory statements made by co-conspirators in their own presence following a crime have a strong indicia of spontaneity and reliability so as to comport with confrontation requirements. We also emphasize the fact that Appellant's counsel undertook a thorough cross-examination of Jackson on the witness chair. No violation of the Bruton rule occurred here.