Court Opinion

ID: 9710280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:05:48.377533+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:55.549324
License: Public Domain

PIVARNIK, Justice,
concurring.
I concur fully in this opinion in Issues I, III, and IV. I further concur in the result reached in Issue II. The majority indicates that the admission of the redacted confessions into evidence was harmless error. I believe that, under the circumstances of this case, the admission of these confessions was not error at all. In addition to Sims v. State, (1976) Ind., 358 N.E.2d 746 and Carter v. State, (1977) Ind., 361 N.E.2d 145, we faced this issue in Rogers v. State, (1978) Ind., 375 N.E.2d 1089, Stone v. State, (1978) Ind., 377 N.E.2d 1372, and Williams v. State, (1978) Ind., 379 N.E.2d 449. From all of these cases, I interpret our position to be that it is only where the circumstances and the relationships of the defendants tend to raise an inference that their statements *530point to no one except each other, and this is apparent to all, including the jury, that redaction has no effect as it is clear that the blank in the confession stands for the name of the other defendant. There is no such inference, however, which attaches to all redacted statements such that we must assume that whenever a blank is used to replace a name or a number in a confession that there will immediately be an inference drawn by the jury that is the co-defendant's name which was deleted. No such inference was apparent in any of the defendant's statements admitted in this case. In light of the holdings in the above opinions, I do not feel that the trial court committed error. Nor was there a violation of the provisions and intent of Ind. Code 385-8.1-1-11 (Burns 1975), or the holding in Bruton v. United States, (1968) 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed. 2d 476.