Opinion ID: 2331517
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Guilt PhaseConfrontation Clause

Text: Miller first argues that the prosecutor, in closing arguments, impermissibly used a statement made by Gregory to corroborate the testimony of Blakeney and implicate Miller. On February 26, 1998, the day after the murders, Philadelphia Police Detective Mangold interviewed Gregory in connection with the crime, believing that Gregory was a client of Love. Gregory stated that he heard Love had been killed and agreed to give a voluntary statement, in which he admitted to seeing Love two days earlier in connection with a civil suit, and that two other guys accompanied him to Love's office. (N.T. September 17, 1999, p. 81, Exhibit C-47). During his closing argument to the jury, the prosecutor used this statement made by Gregory and applied it to Miller as follows: Now, what is the corroboration from the statement of [Gregory] and the legal documents. [sic] Well, [Gregory] in his statement to homicide detectives the next day tells you that Mr. Love is my attorney for a civil suit, he says he spoke to Mr. Love the day before the murder. What a coincidence. Two guys with me. What a coincidence. Remember [Blakeney] said that [Miller and Lloyd] had been there before even though according to the detectives who checked the files neither [Miller nor Lloyd] had any prior legal contact with Mr. Love. (N.T. September 23, 1999, p. 137). The prosecutor later argued that the statement made by Gregory corroborated the testimony of Blakeney. (N.T. September 23, 1999, pp. 143-144). Specifically, Miller alleges that, pursuant to Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), and its progeny, the inculpatory statement of a non-testifying co-conspirator can only be used against the declarant. Therefore, Miller contends that the introduction of Gregory's statement to implicate him violated his Confrontation Clause right to question a witness against him. We disagree. In Bruton, the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant is deprived of his Confrontation Clause rights when the statement of a non-testifying co-defendant names the defendant as a participant in the crime, even if the jury is instructed to consider that confession only against the codefendant. The Court reasoned that the Sixth Amendment is violated where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial. Id. at 135-136, 88 S.Ct. 1620. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court re-examined the issue in Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987). In Richardson, the confession of Marsh's co-defendant was redacted to omit any reference to Marsh. The Court held that the admission of the confession of Marsh's co-defendant did not violate Bruton because it did not expressly implicate Marsh and became incriminating only when linked with evidence later introduced at trial (the defendant's own testimony). Richardson, 481 U.S. at 208, 107 S.Ct. 1702. Because the redacted confession acquired its incriminating character solely as a result of evidence that later connected Marsh to the confession, the Court reasoned that a jury would be less likely to disregard an instruction to consider the statement only as to the declarant. [T]he Confrontation Clause is not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession with a proper limiting instruction when, as here, the confession is redacted to eliminate not only the defendant's name, but any reference to his or her existence. Id. at 211, 107 S.Ct. 1702. The Court further stated [w]e express no opinion on the admissibility of a confession in which the defendant's name has been replaced with a symbol or neutral pronoun. Id. at 211, n. 5, 107 S.Ct. 1702. In Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 118 S.Ct. 1151, 140 L.Ed.2d 294 (1998), the U.S. Supreme Court answered this question, holding that replacing the name of the defendant with the word deleted, an X, or a blank space in the confession of a co-defendant would violate Bruton. However, the Gray Court indicated that replacement of a defendant's name with a generic term would not conflict with the Confrontation Clause: Consider as an example a portion of the confession before us: The witness who read the confession told the jury that the confession (among other things) said, `Question: Who was in the group that beat Stacey?' `Answer: Me, deleted, deleted, and a few other guys.' Why could the witness not, instead, have said: `Question: Who was in the group that beat Stacey?' `Answer: Me and a few other guys.' Gray, 523 U.S. at 196, 118 S.Ct. 1151. The Gray Court distinguished Richardson as follows:  Richardson's inferences involved statements that did not refer directly to the defendant himself and which became incriminating only when linked with evidence introduced later at trial, while the redacted confession in Gray refer[red] directly to the existence of the nonconfessing defendant. Gray, 523 U.S. at 192, 118 S.Ct. 1151. As a general matter, when read together, Bruton, Richardson, and Gray stand for the notion that a statement of a non-testifying co-defendant, provided that the trial court gives a limiting instruction to the jury admonishing them to consider the statement against solely the declarant, will violate the Confrontation Clause only when the jury can tell from the face of the statement to whom it is referring; if the jury must refer to other evidence to determine to whom the statement refers, the Confrontation Clause rights of the defendant are not violated. In Commonwealth v. Travers, 564 Pa. 362, 768 A.2d 845 (2001), Thompson, Travers' co-defendant, admitted to the police his complicity in a murder and expressly made reference to Travers in his statement. The trial court ordered that the phrase the other man be substituted for any specific reference to Travers by name. This Court held that such a change, in conjunction with a cautionary instruction, was sufficient to protect Travers' Confrontation Clause rights. We reasoned as follows: The rationale employed in Gray makes clear that the kind of redaction employed here does not implicate Bruton concerns in the same way as a statement that incriminates the defendant on its face, either by actually naming him or by an obvious method of deletion that no less certainly points the finger at him. The redacted statement here neither referred to [Travers] by name (the Bruton proscription) nor did it contain an obvious indication of a deletion or an alteration that was the functional equivalent of naming him (the Gray proscription). Indeed, use of a neutral pronoun is not an obvious alteration at all.... The other man reference employed here was certainly not the sort of reference which, even were the confession the very first item introduced at trial, obviously referred to the defendant.... Instead, as in Richardson, the redacted statement could become incriminating only through independent evidence introduced at trial which established the defendant's complicity and, even then, only if it is assumed that the jury ignored the court's charge. Travers, 768 A.2d at 851 (internal citations and quotations omitted). Travers controls the case sub judice on this issue. Gregory admitted that he saw Love two days earlier in connection with a civil suit, and that two other guys accompanied him to Love's law office. As was true of the reference to the other man in Travers, the reference to two other guys in the present case was not the sort of reference that, even were the confession the very first item introduced at trial, obviously referred to Miller. The statement only became incriminating when linked with Blakeney's testimony, which was presented later in the trial. The trial court gave the following cautionary instructions to the jury: I want to remind you that the purported statements of any defendant which was given to the police and read to you by detectives is only evidence in the case involving that particular defendant. You may not and must not consider the statement which any of the defendants on trial before you gave to the police as evidence in the cases involving the remaining co-defendants. (N.T. September 23, 1999, pp. 171-172). I remind you that if you find that a particular defendant gave a voluntary statement to the police, you may consider the statement as evidence against only the defendant who made it. You must not, however, consider the statement as evidence against any of the co-defendants. You must not use the statement in any way in the case involving the other co-defendants. (N.T. September 24, 1999, p. 9). These were appropriate cautionary instructions that correctly informed the jury that they could not use Gregory's statement against Miller. The law presumes that the jury will follow the instructions of the court. Travers, 768 A.2d at 847 (citing Commonwealth v. Travaglia, 541 Pa. 108, 661 A.2d 352 (1995)). Accordingly, we hold that the prosecutor's reference to Gregory's statement did not violate Miller's Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights.