Opinion ID: 77318
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bruton Error With Respect to Severance

Text: 48 Hernandez argues that the district court committed Bruton error when it denied Hernandez's motions for mistrial and severance after Agent Heck testified that Norneilla-Morales had told her that he had planned to overtake an aircraft by force for over a year and that he had recruited the other five. The district court denied Hernandez's motion for severance on the basis that because Norneilla-Morales was testifying at trial and would be subject to cross-examination, Hernandez's Sixth Amendment rights were not implicated by the admission of Agent Heck's testimony. 49 In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), the Supreme Court held that the admission of a powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statement of a co-defendant violates a defendant's Sixth Amendment right of confrontation even when the court instructs the jury to consider the confession only against the co-defendant. Id. at 135-36, 88 S.Ct. 1620. A statement is powerfully incriminating if it expressly implicates the defendant. Id. 50 However, the Court clarified the Bruton rule in Nelson v. O'Neil, 402 U.S. 622, 91 S.Ct. 1723, 29 L.Ed.2d 222 (1971), when it held that there is no Confrontation Clause problem when the confessing co-defendant is subject to cross-examination at trial. Id. at 627, 91 S.Ct. 1723 (The Constitution as construed in Bruton, in other words, is violated only where the out-of-court hearsay statement is that of a declarant who is unavailable at the trial for `full and effective' cross-examination.); see also United States v. Clemons, 32 F.3d 1504 (11th Cir.1994) (holding that because one defendant waived his Fifth Amendment right and testified, thus making him available for cross-examination, the court did not err in admitting his post-arrest statement implicating his co-defendant). 51 In this case, Norneilla-Morales testified at trial and was available for cross-examination, thus Hernandez's Sixth Amendment rights were not violated and his motion for severance was properly denied. 8