Opinion ID: 2266221
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Issues 1 and 2: Violation of Miles' Bruton Rights

Text: We consider Miles' first and second issues together. First, Miles argues that the redaction of his name from his co-defendants' statements was not sufficient to protect him from undue prejudice. Miles contends that despite the redaction, the co-defendants' statements remained powerfully incriminating, thus violating his right to confrontation as set forth in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). In Bruton, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the introduction of a non-testifying co-defendant's incriminating statement that implicates another defendant deprives that defendant of his Confrontation Clause rights. Thus, in Commonwealth v. Johnson, 474 Pa. 410, 378 A.2d 859 (1977), we held that the Commonwealth could introduce the redacted statement of a co-defendant as evidence in a joint trial only if that statement in no way refers to the other defendant. All three co-defendants in this case gave similar inculpatory statements to the police. Henry and Kinard waived their rights to have their respective co-defendants' statements redacted. Miles, however, chose to have his name redacted from Henry's and Kinard's statements. The trial court then ordered the substitution of Miles' name with the letter X in both statements, which were subsequently introduced into evidence. In Commonwealth v. Lee, 541 Pa. 260, 662 A.2d 645 (1995), the defendant argued that although his name was replaced with an X in his co-defendant's statement, when the statement was read in the context of the Commonwealth's other evidence, it was clear that Lee was X. This Court held that replacing any specific reference to the defendant from a co-defendants' statement using an X can protect the defendant's rights if a proper limiting instruction is given. Lee. Besides redacting the co-defendants' statements, the trial court cautioned the jury during the trial that each statement should only be evaluated as evidence against the defendant making the statement. The trial court repeated that instruction in its charge to the jury. Thus, the trial court complied with Johnson and Lee and this claim fails. Second, Miles argues that the trial court erred in denying his Motion to Sever the trials of the three co-defendants. Miles restates his argument that he was prejudiced because his co-defendants' statements were redacted using an X and the jury could not have failed to understand that the letter X in the co-defendants' statements represented Miles. However, as already discussed, the substitution of the letter X for a defendant's name does not violate that defendant's Bruton rights if a proper limiting instruction is given, as it was in this case. Lee. Thus, because Miles has failed to demonstrate how being tried with co-defendants unduly prejudiced him, this claim fails.