Court Opinion

ID: 9430014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:28:38.879992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:22.429756
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court today admitting Peele’s out-of-court confession for nonhearsay rebuttal purposes. I do so on the understanding that the trial court’s limiting instruction is not itself sufficient to justify admission of the confession. See Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968). The out-of-court confession is admissible for nonhearsay purposes in this case only because that confession was essential to the State’s rebuttal of respondent Street’s defense and because nó alternative short of admitting the statement would have adequately served the State’s interest. See ante, at 415-416. With respect to the State’s need to admit the confession for rebuttal purposes, it is important to note that respondent created the need to admit the statement by pressing the defense that his confession was a coerced imitation of Peele’s out-of-court confession.* Also, the record *418contains no suggestion that the State was engaged in any improper effort to place prejudicial hearsay evidence before the jury. See Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415 (1965). Under the circumstances of the present case, admission of the out-of-court confession for nonhearsay rebuttal purposes raises no Confrontation Clause problems.

In fact, at an earlier point in the trial respondent unsuccessfully sought to introduce Peele’s confession on the ground that it was “very material” to the argument that respondent’s confession was a coerced imitation. App. 41.