Opinion ID: 2061453
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Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Jefferson's Appeal.

Text: Jefferson claims he was deprived of a fair trial by the district court's denial of his motion to sever. Generally a trial court's ruling on a motion to sever will not be disturbed unless an abuse of discretion is proven. State v. Thornton, 506 N.W.2d 777, 779 (Iowa 1993). Here, however, a constitutional defect is implicated. We review claimed violations of the confrontation clause de novo. State v. Liggins, 557 N.W.2d 263, 268 (Iowa 1996); State v. Hoeck, 547 N.W.2d 852, 856 (Iowa App.1996); State v. Puffinbarger, 540 N.W.2d 452, 455 (Iowa App.1995). In seeking a separate trial, Jefferson anticipated a Bruton situation. Carroll's postarrest statements were allowed into evidence at the joint trial as admissions by a party opponentagainst Carroll's interest See Iowa R. Evid. 801(d)(2)(A); Hoeck, 547 N.W.2d at 856. Carroll chose not to testify, thus preventing Jefferson's counsel from cross-examining him. Carroll's hearsay statements, of course, would not have been admissible in a separate prosecution against Jefferson. Thus, Jefferson argues, his right of confrontation guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution was violated. Jefferson relies on Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 135-36, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1628, 20 L.Ed.2d 476, 485 (1968), in which the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant is deprived of his constitutional right to confront witnesses when his nontestifying codefendant's confession, naming him as a participant in the crime, is placed before the jury at their joint trial. Bruton created an exception to the presumption that, in a joint trial, jurors will follow a limiting instruction. The question was whether jurors, when so instructed, could give due regard to permissible hearsay evidence against the codefendant but put out of their minds that same evidence, powerfully incriminating but inadmissible, against the defendant. Id. at 135, 88 S.Ct. at 1628, 20 L.Ed.2d at 485. The Court observed that [d]espite the concededly clear instructions to the jury to disregard [codefendant's] inadmissible hearsay evidence inculpating petitioner, in the context of a joint trial we cannot accept limiting instructions as an adequate substitute for petitioner's constitutional right of cross-examination. Id. at 137, 88 S.Ct. at 1628, 20 L.Ed.2d at 485. Carroll's admissions, which will be detailed further in this opinion, placed himself at the Kum & Go with the other guy with whom he fled in the escape vehicle. Jefferson contends these admissions virtually invited jurors to identify Jefferson as a participant in the crime. He argues further, under Bruton, the ineffectiveness of the limiting instruction which admonished the jury not to consider Carroll's admissions in any way as evidence in this trial relating to Defendant Jefferson. Jefferson contends that the hearsay statements, entered into evidence at the joint trial, prejudiced the jury on its deliberations of his guilt, requiring a new and separate trial. The State counters Jefferson's Bruton argument with Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987). In Marsh, a codefendant's confession was redacted to eliminate not only the defendant's name but any reference to her existence as one of the perpetrators of the crime. Marsh, 481 U.S. at 211, 107 S.Ct. at 1709, 95 L.Ed.2d at 188. Finding no confrontation clause violation under this circumstance, the Court distinguished Bruton as follows: In Bruton, the codefendant's confession expressly implicat[ed] the defendant as his accomplice. Thus, at the time that confession was introduced there was not the slightest doubt that it would prove powerfully incriminating. By contrast, in [ Marsh ] the confession was not incriminating on its face, and became so only when linked with evidence introduced later at trial (the defendant's own testimony). Id. at 208, 107 S.Ct. at 1707, 95 L.Ed.2d at 186 (citations and footnote omitted). Elaborating on the distinction, the Court went on to say: Specific testimony that the defendant helped me commit the crime is more vivid than inferential incrimination, and hence more difficult to thrust out of mind. Id. at 208, 107 S.Ct. at 1708, 95 L.Ed.2d at 186. The State argues no more than inferential incrimination occurred here. Its reliance on Marsh for this proposition is weakened, however, in one significant respect: Carroll's confession, while not specifically naming Jefferson, was not silent on the existence of an accomplice. His statements repeatedly referred to the other guy involved in the robbery. The Marsh Court expressly reserved opinion on the admissibility of a confession in which the defendant's name has been replaced with a symbol or neutral pronoun. Marsh, 481 U.S. at 211 n. 5, 107 S.Ct. at 1709 n. 5, 95 L.Ed.2d at 188 n. 5. Not surprisingly, the question reserved in Marsh has spawned substantial litigation. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has focused its Bruton /Marsh inquiry on whether the co-defendant's redacted confession itself implicates the defendant. United States v. Jones, 101 F.3d 1263, 1270 (8th Cir.1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 1566, 137 L.Ed.2d 712 (1997). If the confession on its face incriminates a defendant, a Bruton violation occurs. Id. If, however, the statement standing alone does not draw attention to defendant, Marsh controls. Id. at 1269-70 (surveying Eighth Circuit cases). The facts in Jones illustrate the court's analysis. Jones, the kingpin of a large drug operation, allegedly ordered a hit on a dealer caught cheating. Id. at 1265-66. The hit man and Jones were jointly tried for murder and conspiring to distribute drugs. Id. at 1266. Jones challenged hearsay testimony admitted against the hit man, in which the hit man said the dealer tried to jack them for some work, some of the dope. And they killed him. Id. at 1270. The court found no Bruton violation from the use of the plural pronouns, reasoning that they could have referred to anyone or a group of individuals acting with the codefendants. Accordingly, the court found no abuse of discretion in the admission of the confession. Id. In a footnote, the court distinguished United States v. Bennett, 848 F.2d 1134 (11th Cir.1988), in which use of the pronoun they in the redacted confession was directly linked to the unnamed defendant by the prosecutor in both opening and closing statements. Id. at 1270-71 n. 5. The Jones court explained that they and someone violate Bruton when the unnamed defendant is tied directly to the confession in the manner and context in which the confession is presented, but they and someone do not violate Bruton where the manner of presenting the confession and the context do not lead the jury directly to the defendant. Id. As other cases bear out, such distinctions are not easily drawn. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals, for example, ruling in a case in which two men were accused and tried jointly for a beating death, found a Bruton violation where the appealing defendant's role in the crime was clearly demonstrated by his codefendant's confession even though his name was replaced by deleted. State v. Gray, 107 Md.App. 311, 667 A.2d 983, 990 (1995), rev'd, 344 Md. 417, 687 A.2d 660 (1997). Maryland's highest court reversed, reasoning that the fact that as many as six men may have participated in the beating prevented the jury from inevitably filling in the defendant's name where deleted appeared. State v. Gray, 344 Md. 417, 687 A.2d 660, 668(Md.), cert. granted, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 2452, 138 L.Ed.2d 210 (1997). The United States Supreme Court has granted certiorari. Our own court of appeals has recently decided three Bruton cases: Hoeck, 547 N.W.2d at 856-58; State v. Means, 547 N.W.2d 615, 623-24 (Iowa App.1996); and Puffinbarger, 540 N.W.2d at 457-58. Hoeck is particularly pertinent to our analysis here. Six males were charged in the shooting death of a seventeen-year-old female whose car they wanted to use in a convenience store robbery. Three of the accuseds Hoeck, Means, and Voelkerswere jointly tried. Means' confession, offered against Hoeck, contained blank spaces to indicate where a name was redacted. Hoeck, 547 N.W.2d at 857. The court of appeals found a Bruton violation despite the redaction. Id. Its opinion quoted extensively from the trial transcript to illustrate that, by process of elimination, the jury was clearly invit[ed] to insert Hoeck's name in the blank[s]. Id. at 858. With these cases in mind, we turn to Carroll's admissions. The paramedic who revived Carroll asked him what events had led up to his unconsciousnessobviously seeking information about his medical condition. Carroll, instead, explained how he came to be at the scene of a crime. Over defense counsel's objection, the paramedic testified as follows: Q. (by the prosecutor) Mr. Ludwick, you can go ahead and tell us what the patient told you. A. As I recall the patient said he needed asked for a ride from a man. He got in the car. They stopped at the convenience store to ask for directions, and the male patient said he heard some noise. He was told to get into the car. They had drove real fast. They stopped the car, and the other gentleman told him to run fast. Q. Did he tell you anything further about the use of any drugs or alcohol? A. Patient admitted to using alcohol and marijuana. Carroll was then taken to the police station, where he gave statements to the police. Over counsel's objection, the investigating officer gave the following testimony at trial: Q. (by the prosecutor) You may answer, Officer Bjornson. A. He advised me that he had been at a girl's residence. The girl was not there. He needed a ride and somebody that he did not know was going to give him a ride. They ended up going to a Quick Trip, and he was going to go in and ask for directions on how to get back to Highway 69 and 65 because they wanted to get back in Des Moines. He said he didn't know where they were at. The other guy at this pointHe said the other guy had a scrap. I asked him what he meant. He said it's a gun. He said the other guy pulled the gun out. He said then he heard the other guy say, Give up the money. Give up the loot. Q. To who? A. To the attendant. He said the other guy then told the attendant to go to the back room, and the other guy he was with grabbed the attendant by the arm and took him to the back room. He said he didn't hear any shots, but he did see the other guy pointing the gun at the attendant and that's when he took out the door. I then asked him about the vehicle that they were in. He said it was the other guy's car. The other guy was driving. He said that the car was parked at the back and the side of the building. He then went on to say that he went to the car and waited. The other guy came out, and they then at that point took off. They got out to a highway and the guy driving seen a cop. He said the driver panicked. He said, We're going to do a high speed. The cop then chased after them, said the driver of the car stopped, told him to get out and run, so he did. He said that he went over by a ditch, laid down, and went to sleep. The officer stated that he reviewed his notes with Carroll, and Carroll signed them, representing that they correctly reflected his statement. The interview continued, as related at trial by the testifying officer: Q. (by the prosecutor) Officer Bjornson, after completing the statement, what did you do? Did you speak with Mr. Carroll further? A. Yes, I did.... I then asked him about where they had parked the car, and if he didn't think it was funny that they were parked behind the store. And he said he didn't think it was funny because he was just going to go in and ask directions. And at this point he said the store he went into was a Kum & Go. I then drew on my notes a doorway showing the counter and a closet door which the attendant had been taken into which was described to me by Mr. Carroll, and then I had him show me where on my notes that he would have been in position as far as how far back he had went to the closet door which he showed me. And then I marked on my notes. I started to ask him questions about being back by the closet. He said he did walk around back by the closet door, but he was just asking of the other guy, What's going on? He said at this point he'd seen two other guys come in the store and that's when he took off. He said he did not remember going into the closet where the incident took place. He said he did not remember hearing any shots. He just ran from the store. Once again, he related to me that the store was a Kum & Go. He just went in to ask for directions to Highway 65 and 69, and it was the other guy that came in that had the gun. Q. After your discussion in your questioning then with Mr. Carroll, you indicated to us you drew somea map on some more notes; is that right? A. That's correct. Q. After you completed that page of notes, did you again ask Mr. Carroll to review it? A. Yes, I did. I read everything to him that I had written down. He agreed that that's what he had told me, and I had him sign my notes once again Given the content of the foregoing testimony, no redaction of Jefferson's name was necessary because neither witness testifying to the hearsay statements identified Jefferson by name. Indeed, the facts suggest that Carroll may not have known Jefferson's name, as they had just met earlier in the evening. The question remains whether the hearsay statements necessarily led the jury to identify Jefferson as the robber and gunman, in violation of Bruton. We think they did. The State's case centered on two defendants accused of entering a convenience store, robbing the clerk at gunpoint, fleeing the scene, attempting to elude police in a high speed chase, and being apprehended near where the getaway car ended up in a corn field. Although Carroll's statements did not specifically name Jefferson as the culpable party to the crime, the statements nonetheless directly implicated him, and him alone. He was the only other defendant in the courtroom. No doubt could be left in a reasonable juror's mind that Jefferson was the other guy, and principal player, identified in Carroll's statements. Moreover, no cautionary instruction by the court could convince the jury to disregard the testimony as it pertained to Jefferson, the other guy. See Bruton, 391 U.S. at 137, 88 S.Ct. at 1628, 20 L.Ed.2d at 485 (no cautionary instruction could serve as adequate substitute for constitutional right of cross-examination). A clear Bruton violation occurred. A Bruton violation need not automatically lead to reversal, however. Hoeck, 547 N.W.2d at 858. The Supreme Court has said: In some cases the properly admitted evidence of guilt is so overwhelming, and the prejudicial effect of the codefendant's admission is so insignificant by comparison, that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the improper use of the admission was harmless error. Schneble v. Florida, 405 U.S. 427, 430, 92 S.Ct. 1056, 1059, 31 L.Ed.2d 340, 344 (1972). Our court has similarly found that even where a codefendant's extrajudicial confession is admitted erroneously, it may constitute harmless error if there is other overwhelming evidence of defendant's guilt, so that the prejudicial impact of the codefendant's statement was relatively insignificant. State v. Waterbury, 307 N.W.2d 45, 48 (Iowa 1981); accord Hoeck, 547 N.W.2d at 858; Means, 547 N.W.2d at 624. See Harrington v. California, 395 U.S. 250, 253, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 1728, 23 L.Ed.2d 284, 287 (1969) (finding harmless error in failure to afford defendant opportunity to cross-examine codefendant where evidence against defendant overwhelming, including his own statement placing him at scene of crime). It is important to note, however, that the harmless error analysis applied in the Sixth Amendment context requires a reviewing court to consider more than just the amount of untainted evidence against the defendant; that evidence must be weighed against the probative force of the tainted confession. Cf. Harrington, 395 U.S. at 256, 89 S.Ct. at 1729, 23 L.Ed.2d at 289 (The focus of appellate inquiry should be on the character and quality of the tainted evidence as it relates to the untainted evidence and not just on the amount of untainted evidence.) (Brennan, J., dissenting). We addressed this quantity versus quality issue in State v. Hensley, 534 N.W.2d 379, 383-84 (Iowa 1995). There we observed that the inquiry is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error. Id. at 383 (quoting Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2081, 124 L.Ed.2d 182, 189 (1993)). We proceeded to identify two distinct steps in the harmless error analysis: (1) consideration of the evidence the jury actually considered, that is, all the evidence before the jury, and, (2) the probative force of that evidence when weighed against the erroneously admitted evidence. Id. In Hensley, that comparison favored the State. Circumstantial proof that a motorcycle in defendant's possession was stolen wielded far more probative force than defendant's uncertain, but erroneously introduced, admission that he felt the motorcycle was stolen. Id. at 384. Here there can be little quarrel that the untainted evidence against Jefferson was abundant. The store clerk, noting Jefferson's distinctive chubby cheeks, positively identified him as the gunman. Witnesses' description of the car that sped away from the scene matched Jefferson's two-toned sedan. An officer on patrol spotted a car fitting that description soon after the robbery. When the officer approached Jefferson's vehicle he was led on a high speed chase. An abandoned winter coat like the one witnesses described the gunman wearing turned up on the chase route. When apprehended, Jefferson stated that he did not have the gun. The identity of the robbers, nevertheless, was hotly contested at trial. None of the witnesses but November claimed ability to identify Jefferson, and November's hospitalroom identificationmade while under treatment for serious wounds and after the defendants' photos were broadcast on television met vigorous challenge by defense counsel. The weapon used in the assault was never found. Following the defendants' arrests, it was Carroll, not Jefferson, who had gunpowder residue on his hands. Jefferson's defense of mistaken identity, however, was effectively gutted by Carroll's admissions inculpating him. Far from being relatively insignificant by comparison to the untainted proof, see Hoeck, 547 N.W.2d at 858, Carroll's statements immeasurably strengthened the State's case against Jefferson. As we have already stated, the Bruton violation is clear. We are also convinced that Jefferson was prejudiced by the error. The probative force of Carroll's inculpatory admissions is undeniable. No basis for introduction of the hearsay would have existed had Jefferson been tried separately from Carroll. In conclusion, we cannot say with confidence that the jury's verdict was not attributable to the Bruton error. See Hensley, 534 N.W.2d at 383. Jefferson was denied a fair trial by the erroneous and highly prejudicial introduction of his codefendant's admissions. His conviction must be reversed and the case against him remanded for a new trial.