Opinion ID: 1710572
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: use of richardson's out of court statements

Text: Appellant contends that his counsel was ineffective in failing to preserve objections to trial testimony regarding the confession of codefendant Antonio Richardson. Appellant argues that the testimony concerning Richardson's confession was hearsay and, under the standards of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), that testimony should not have been allowed into evidence because it violated the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause. Defense counsel objected vociferously to any mention of Richardson's statement, but these objections were overruled. Counsel did not preserve them by including them in appellant's motion for new trial. In Bruton , the Court held that admission of a codefendant's confession implicating the defendant, where the codefendant does not testify, violates a defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause to cross-examine witnesses. 391 U.S. at 126, 88 S.Ct. at 1622-1623. While evidence in the record showed that Richardson made a statement, the precise contents of that statement did not come into evidence through any act of the prosecution. The jury did not hear a recording of Richardson's statement nor did they read a transcript of it. The prosecutor did not elicit direct testimony from any witness as to any details of what Richardson said in his statement. In short, the state did not elicit any direct testimony to the effect that Richardson's statement explicitly implicated appellant. Rather, the defense elicited the most direct testimony to that effect. During the presentation of appellant's case, the defense asked Detective Chris Pappas: And what Mr. Antonio Richardson said didn't implicate [Clemons]? Pappas responded, Yes, sir; it did implicate. Although this is clearly testimony regarding an out-of-court statement of Richardson that implicated the appellant, there is no Bruton violation where the defendant elicits the incriminating out-of-court statements. United States v. Karam, 37 F.3d 1280, 1287 (8th Cir.1994). Appellant ignores the above testimony in his brief, but rather concentrates on the prosecutor's alleged end run around the Bruton rule. Appellant charges that the prosecutor first elicited testimony that Cummins had made a statement implicating appellant, and then asked police officers whether Richardson's statements were consistent with those of Cummins. Thus, to the extent Cummins's recorded statements to the police implicated appellant, the jury could infer that Richardson's did as well. The state contends such testimony was not hearsay because it was not offered for the truth of the matter asserted but rather to explain why the police turned their investigation away from Cummins. Appellant disagrees. He claims the testimony about Richardson's statement was offered solely to bolster Cummins's own statement and, thus, was offered for the truth of the matter asserted, rendering it hearsay. We need not decide whether this indirect testimony as to the substance of Richardson's out-of-court statement is inadmissible because we do not see how appellant was prejudiced by the testimony. Even an obvious violation of Bruton does not mean automatic reversal. Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 430, 92 S.Ct. 1056, 1058-1059, 31 L.Ed.2d 340 (1972). Where the evidence of guilt is overwhelming and the prejudicial effect of the codefendant's statement is insignificant by comparison, the admission of the statement is but harmless error. Id. Reversal is not required unless there is a reasonable probability that the improperly admitted evidence contributed to the conviction. Id. at 431, 92 S.Ct. at 1059. The cross-examination testimony elicited by the prosecution regarding Richardson's statement, even if improper, was not so prejudicial as to warrant reversal. First, as noted above, defendant himself elicited the most direct testimony as to the content of Richardson's out-of-court statement. Second, there is no reason to conclude that references to Richardson's statements formed the essential foundation on which the jury built its verdict. This is because appellant's own statement admitted that appellant was on the platform underneath the bridge when Julie and Robin Kerry were pushed to their deaths. Appellant maintains that any prejudicial effect was magnified, however, by the fact that the prosecution played a videotape, without sound, of Richardson walking along the bridge and pointing out various locations on the bridge to investigators. The trial court viewed the videotape prior to showing it to the jury, determined that there was no non-verbal statement by Richardson on the tape, and that the prejudice, if any, to appellant of Richardson's presence on the tape was outweighed by the probative value of giving the jury a visual layout of the crime scene. In light of the strong case against appellant, the indirect nature of the prosecution's reference to the substance of Richardson's statement, and the fact that the only direct reference to the contents of Richardson's statement was elicited by the defense, we conclude that the motion court did not err in failing to find ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to raise the claim in the motion for new trial.