Opinion ID: 1162168
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: lorraine kramer

Text: (8a) A different standard for reversible error must be employed in passing upon the prejudicial effect on Lorraine Kramer's trial of the erroneous admission against her of Hagler's hearsay testimony as to Leach's declarations. (9) [W]here 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, the incriminated defendant has a federal constitutional right to confront and cross-examine the declarant cum codefendant. ( Bruton v. United States (1968) 391 U.S. 123, 135-136 [20 L.Ed.2d 476, 485, 88 S.Ct. 1620]; see ante, fn. 17.) When this right to confrontation is denied, an ensuing conviction may stand only if the reviewing court is `able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.' ( Harrington v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 250, 251 [23 L.Ed.2d 284, 286, 89 S.Ct. 1726], quoting Chapman v. California (1967) 386 U.S. 18, 24 [17 L.Ed.2d 705, 711, 87 S.Ct. 824, 24 A.L.R.3d 1065].) (8b) The evidence of Leach's admissions was certainly powerfully incriminating of Lorraine Kramer, especially in view of the virtual ratification of these admissions by Leach's counsel in argument to the jury, and unlike the Kramers, Leach himself did not appear as a witness at trial. We must accordingly measure the error committed below in admitting evidence of Leach's declarations against the exacting federal standard for harmless constitutional error. Although the Supreme Court has acknowledged that Bruton error presents a serious risk that the issue of guilt or innocence may not have been reliably determined ( Roberts v. Russell (1968) 392 U.S. 293, 295 [20 L.Ed.2d 1100, 1103, 88 S.Ct. 1921] [holding Bruton applicable both retroactively and to prosecutions under state law]), the court has explicitly refused to say that no violation of Bruton can constitute harmless error ( Harrington v. California, supra, 395 U.S. at p. 254 [23 L.Ed.2d at p. 288]). Bruton error has been found harmless where [t]he testimony erroneously admitted was merely cumulative of other overwhelming and largely uncontroverted evidence properly before the jury ( Brown v. United States (1973) 411 U.S. 223, 231 [36 L.Ed.2d 208, 215, 93 S.Ct. 1565]), and where there was properly admitted against a defendant complaining of Bruton error evidence of his own minutely detailed ... [extrajudicial] account of the offense [the details of which] were internally consistent, were corroborated by other objective evidence, ... were not contradicted by other evidence in the case [and] were consistently reiterated ... on several occasions ( Schneble v. Florida (1972) 405 U.S. 427, 430-431 [31 L.Ed.2d 340, 344-345, 92 S.Ct. 1056]). These findings of harmless error reflect the Supreme Court's direction of inquiry to the probable impact of the inadmissible evidence on the minds of an average jury. (Italics added.) ( Harrington v. California, supra, 395 U.S. at p. 254 [23 L.Ed.2d at p. 288]; cf. Traynor, The Riddle of Harmless Error (1970) at pp. 44-46.) With due consciousness that an abridgment of a federal constitutional right is not lightly to be declared without prejudicial consequence, we are compelled to such a conclusion in Lorraine Kramer's case. The evidence of the admissions of Leach to Hagler, however powerfully incriminating, pales dramatically in significance when compared with the tape recordings of Lorraine Kramer's own admissions to the undercover deputy sheriff who was posing as an agent of Leach. [19] (See ante, p. 426.) These recordings inescapably bring the trial of Lorraine Kramer within the Supreme Court's above-quoted criteria for harmless Bruton error. They provide overwhelming proof of Lorraine Kramer's willing complicity in the death of her father, and indeed are testimony to the compassion of the jury in finding Lorraine Kramer guilty of merely second degree murder while returning a first degree verdict against the youth who at her behest actually committed the murder. [20] (See ante, p. 427.) We are therefore satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Lorraine Kramer suffered no prejudice by virtue of the admission against her of Hagler's testimony as to Leach's declarations. The judgments of conviction are affirmed.