Opinion ID: 853428
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Admission of Interviews

Text: Latta argues that her rights were violated when the unredacted pre-arrest interview of Roger was admitted at trial. This is claimed to have been the product of ineffective counsel and is also presented as a Bruton violation. In Bruton v. United States, the Supreme Court held that admission of one defendant's confession inculpating another defendant in a joint trial violated the other defendant's right to confrontation, even if the jury was instructed to ignore the statement. 391 U.S. 123, 136-37, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). This presents an unusual Bruton claim. Bruton is grounded in the right to confront witnesses, which includes the defendant's right to cross-examine adverse witnesses. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 406-07, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). Bruton reasoned that an inculpatory statement by one defendant may be admissible against that defendant under the rules of evidence. Because that defendant cannot be compelled to testify, the other defendant's right of cross-examination is violated by introduction of the statement. In this case, Roger did not testify and Latta had no opportunity to cross-examine him. However, it is not Roger's testimony, but rather his silence and their joint counsel's objections to which Latta objects. Roger never admitted to any involvement in or knowledge of the fire, but he failed to answer several questions after Studtmann objected that the question called for an incriminating response. Latta argues persuasively that the effect is the same as if the court had admitted inculpatory answers from Roger, which would plainly be a Bruton violation. We agree that admission of Roger's statements violated Latta's right to cross-examine unless Roger testified at trial, which he did not. The questions to Roger and counsel's objections bore directly on Latta's guilt or innocence and Latta had no opportunity to cross-examine Roger to attempt to establish that his silence was based on circumstances that do not inculpate her. Latta urges that this silence was taken by the interrogator as a refusal to answer. Because of counsel's description of the question as incriminating, the jury may well have perceived it as inculpatory of either Roger or both Lattas. However, this was an issue available on the record and not presented on direct appeal. Accordingly, as a direct Bruton violation, it was waived. See Trueblood v. State, 715 N.E.2d 1242, 1248 (Ind.1999) (issues known and available but not raised on direct appeal are waived for postconviction proceedings). Although a Bruton claim was waived, we think counsel's failure to object to an unredacted transcript including objections and unanswered questions from Roger's pre-arrest interview is compelling evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel. Latta's pre-arrest interview also contains the same objections of counsel. The postconviction court accepted as strategic Studtmann's testimony that he concluded that it was preferable to give the jury a transcript with these statements rather than one with portions erased. We cannot understand this contention. It is difficult to see how a properly redacted transcript of the interview would have been harmful to Latta, particularly because the transcript appears to have been prepared on a dot matrix printer and was therefore presumably easily editable on a computer leaving no trace of omissions. This strategy backfired when, in its closing argument, the State referred to Latta's refusal to answer. In short, the postconviction court's conclusion that this was trial strategy seems indefensible.