Opinion ID: 2334546
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Gayles' Bruton Argument

Text: We next turn to Gayles' separate challenges to his convictions. We address first his claim that although Lindsey's confession was redacted to remove any direct or inferential reference to Gayles, his Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause rights were breached when the government impermissibly linked the confession with the other evidence against him in its rebuttal argument. Because Gayles did not object to the alleged misconduct at trial, we review for plain error the trial judge's failure to intervene sua sponte. See, e.g., Adams v. United States, 883 A.2d 76, 83; Irick v. United States, 565 A.2d 26, 33 (D.C.1989). [6] In order to reverse, we must conclude that the error was plain (as in clear or obvious), that it affected substantial rights, and that it seriously affected the fairness, integrity or public reputation of [the] proceedings. Beaner v. United States, 845 A.2d 525, 539 (D.C. 2004) (quoting Wilson v. United States, 785 A.2d 321, 326 (D.C.2001)). [7] In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), the Supreme Court held that a defendant's Confrontation Clause rights are violated when incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant are presented at trial and the defendant has no opportunity to cross-examine his co-defendant. Id. at 135-36, 88 S.Ct. 1620. The Court further held that this harm cannot be corrected by a curative jury instruction since the effect of such a statement is highly prejudicial. Id. at 132, 88 S.Ct. 1620. In Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987), the Court refined the standard articulated in Bruton, stating that the Confrontation Clause is not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession with a proper limiting instruction when . . . 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. In this case, the government argued in its rebuttal that if Lindsey made that statement [to police], and [the four eyewitnesses] know these guys[, Lindsey and Gayles,] and they see them together all the time, and if Lindsey madethen they committed this murder in cold blood. Although this statement is troublesome under the Bruton and Marsh standards because it could be construed as linking Lindsey's statement to Gayles, we cannot find that it prejudiced the outcome of the trial. The government's objectionable comment was one relatively brief remark in a very long case; the trial went on for over five days, spanning over a week and a half, and the prosecutor's summation and rebuttal alone covered over twenty-two pages of transcript in the record. Furthermore, Lindsey's confession was admitted into evidence without any direct or inferential reference to Gayles, and none of the witnesses testified in any way that impermissibly linked Gayles to Lindsey's confession. Given these circumstances, we conclude that the prosecutor's passing remark did not affect substantial rights or undermine the integrity of the trial, and we thus hold that the trial judge's failure to intervene was not plain error. [8]