Opinion ID: 1249738
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Claim of Bruton-Aranda Error.

Text: Defendant moved before trial to sever his trial from Menefield's on the ground that the prosecution planned to introduce extrajudicial statements of Menefield that implicated defendant. In response, the prosecution proposed to edit the statements. At a pretrial hearing, the defense expressed satisfaction with the editing, with reservations that the court decided to address at trial. The motion therefore was denied. At trial, witnesses Rooks and Long described a conversation or conversations that took place the evening before the incident, in which Menefield said, in Rooks's words, that Menefield was going with him, meaning defendant, to resolve the dispute between defendant and Gardner that had arisen in the yard. Long testified that Menefield said he knew he would have to be there but [he] didn't want to be there. The court overruled a Bruton/Aranda objection [3] to Rooks's testimony, apparently finding the statement was made by one coconspirator during and in furtherance of a conspiracy and hence was admissible as an exception to the rule that a codefendant's hearsay statement is inadmissible. [4] (10) We first inquire whether substantial evidence supported the court's implied finding that Rooks's statements were made during and in furtherance of a conspiracy. (Cf. Bourjaily v. United States (1987) 483 U.S. 171, 181 [97 L.Ed.2d 144, 156, 107 S.Ct. 2775] [applying federal clearly erroneous standard].) There was a showing that defendant and Menefield were in agreement and that Menefield made his statement in preparation for the next morning's assault. But the record does not reveal that the statements were made in furtherance of the conspiracy's objective (see Evid. Code, § 1223)  Menefield was not asking Rooks or Long for help. We conclude that the implied finding is not supported by substantial evidence. Under the law as it existed when Gardner and Patch were killed, a hearsay declaration of one defendant that incriminated another in a joint trial was inadmissible because it violated the nondeclarant defendant's federal confrontation rights and a state judicially created procedural rule to the same effect. ( Bruton v. United States, supra, 391 U.S. 123, 126 [20 L.Ed 2d at pp. 479-480]; People v. Aranda, supra, 63 Cal.2d 518, 530-531.) Under state law and federal constitutional law, the rule does not apply to statements made by coconspirators during and in furtherance of the conspiracy. ( People v. Brawley (1969) 1 Cal.3d 277, 286 [82 Cal. Rptr. 161, 461 P.2d 361]; Bourjaily v. United States, supra, 483 U.S. at pp. 181-184 [97 L.Ed.2d at pp. 156-158].) But because the court erred in finding the statements to come within the coconspirator exception, defendant's state and federal rights were violated. Nevertheless, under any standard the error must be deemed harmless. It is not reasonably probable  indeed, it is extraordinarily improbable  that the admission of Rooks's statement led to a less favorable outcome for defendant. (11) Next, Rooks was prepared to testify that he heard Menefield say, when the two were in detention following the killings, that Menefield did not want to go with defendant to confront Gardner but just could not tell him no. Defendant objected that this statement, which came after the conspiracy had ended, would implicate him. The prosecution agreed to try to have Rooks tailor his testimony to avoid mentioning defendant. Rooks then told the jury only that he had spoken with Menefield about Gardner, and He told me he was down on the floor when the incident happened ... because he couldn't say `no.' The court admonished the jury that the testimony is to be taken only as against defendant Menefield and not defendant Roberts. Our reading of the record reveals no error in the admission of this statement. Defendant argues the editing was ineffective because the jury must have known Rooks was referring to him. He relies heavily on cases in which the admission of statements containing ambiguous pronouns was held to be error because the jury could infer that the nondeclarant codefendant was a participant. (E.g., People v. Massie (1967) 66 Cal.2d 899, 919 [59 Cal. Rptr. 733, 428 P.2d 869]; People v. Fortman (1970) 4 Cal. App.3d 495, 498 [84 Cal. Rptr. 458]; People v. Smith (1970) 4 Cal. App.3d 41, 50 [84 Cal. Rptr. 229].) But Rooks uttered no ambiguous pronoun that could have been perceived as including defendant; his references were either to himself or Menefield, but none were to defendant. [5]