Opinion ID: 470387
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the alleged bruton error

Text: 6 Shuman challenges the admission during his 1958 murder trial of the out-of-court confession of his codefendant, Melvin Lee Rowland, which implicated Shuman. In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 137, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1628, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), the Supreme Court held that introduction of such extrajudicial statements violates the defendant's right of confrontation secured by the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment and that cautionary limiting instructions that the confession is evidence only against the confessing defendant, such as those given by the state trial court, do not remedy the deprivation of the right to confrontation. Bruton applies retroactively. Roberts v. Russell, 392 U.S. 293, 293, 88 S.Ct. 1921, 1921, 20 L.Ed.2d 1100 (1968). The district court concluded that the admission of Rowland's confession constituted Bruton error, but that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The Supreme Court has held that a Bruton error is not reversible error if it can be shown that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 253-54, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 1728, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1969). 7 The district court was initially confronted with the problem that the trial transcripts no longer exist; however, the court clerk from the 1958 trial, Martha Barlow, presented the court with exhibits considered by the jury, including a three-page signed confession of Shuman, three tapes of Shuman's two-day-long oral confession, and tapes of codefendant Rowland's confession. The clerk testified as to which parts of the tapes the jury heard based on contemporaneous notes she had made on the ninety-page transcript of the tapes. 1 The district court found that the confession, 8 even with the excisions made, furnishes a detailed and complete account of the murder of which petitioner was convicted at his 1958 trial. The confession of Marvin Lee Rowland, although not quite as detailed as petitioner's confession, and even with excisions made in it, also gives a complete account of the same murder. Both confessions as received in evidence are in agreement with one another and interlock. There are no material conflicts between the two as to any element of the murder. It is readily apparent from a reading of petitioner's confession that that confession alone provided more than a sufficient basis for his conviction. 9 See Parker v. Randolph, 442 U.S. 62, 73, 99 S.Ct. 2132, 2139, 60 L.Ed.2d 713 (1979) (error harmless where the incriminated defendant has corroborated his codefendant's statement by heaping blame onto himself). 10 Shuman disputes the admissibility of Mrs. Barlow's testimony, arguing that Mrs. Barlow had no independent recollection of which portions of the taped confessions were played. 2 Her testimony was based largely upon the notes she had made during the trial on the transcripts of the tapes. Such evidence is admissible under Fed.R.Evid. 803(5) since Mrs. Barlow adequately testified to the three foundational elements: (1) that she had once had the knowledge but, by the time of the hearing, had insufficient recollection to enable her to testify fully and accurately, (2) that the notes were made when the matter was fresh in her memory, and (3) that the notes correctly reflected that knowledge. Further, this objection to the admissibility of this evidence is inconsistent since Shuman must rely on Mrs. Barlow's notes to press his Bruton claim concerning the introduction of codefendant Rowland's confession. 11 We agree with the district court that the erroneous admission of Rowland's confession was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under the standards of Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284 (1968), and Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967).