Opinion ID: 584174
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Travis's Bruton Issue

Text: 45 At trial, Detective Robert Starbuck testified on direct examination about Roulette's confession. Specifically, Starbuck stated that Roulette told him that he dealt crack out of the bedroom in the northwest corner of his apartment. During cross-examination of Starbuck, Florence Jones's counsel asked Starbuck: 46 Q: And James [Roulette] told you, did he not, that when Eric [Travis] came into town that Eric would stay in James' bedroom in the northwest corner of the apartment. 47 A: Yes. 48 IV Tr. at 915. 49 Travis's counsel objected after Starbuck answered the question. The district court denied Travis's counsel's motion for a mistrial and for severance. The district court later instructed the jury to disregard any descriptions of statements by Roulette that would tend to incriminate Travis. 50 Travis argues that the district court committed prejudicial error by refusing to declare a mistrial after Detective Starbuck described a statement by Roulette that implicated Travis by name. In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), the Court held that the sixth amendment confrontation clause precludes admission in a joint trial of the powerfully incriminating statements of a co-defendant not subject to cross-examination. Id. at 137, 88 S.Ct. at 1628-29. A defendant is deprived of his rights under the confrontation clause when his nontestifying codefendant's confession naming him as a participant in the crime is introduced at their joint trial, even if the jury is instructed to consider that confession only against the codefendant. Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 201-02, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 1704-05, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987). Travis objects to the admission of Roulette's statement, through Starbuck, that Travis stayed in the bedroom in the northwest corner of the apartment, where police later found drugs and firearms. We agree that Travis's name should not have appeared in Starbuck's description of Roulette's confession. However, a Bruton error does not require reversal if the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Donahue, 948 F.2d 438, 444 n. 5 (8th Cir.1991). Overwhelming evidence already introduced at trial linked Travis to the bedroom in Roulette's apartment. Sanders testified that on May 30, 1990 he observed Travis sitting on the bed in the northwest corner of Roulette's apartment and that drugs lay on the bed beside Travis. IIA Tr. at 371-73. Police also recovered Travis's shoes and travel bag from the same bedroom. IIIA Tr. at 563-64. Therefore, Roulette's statement implicating Travis was cumulative and did not add to the evidence that already incriminated Travis. Any error the district court committed in handling Starbuck's testimony was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.