Court Opinion

ID: 9493016
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:55:44.937013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:36.120603
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
with whom MCMILLIAN, RICHARD S. ARNOLD, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges, join,
dissenting.
I believe that this case presents a clear Bruton violation, that the error here is not harmless, and, therefore, I would reverse the district court.
Benjamin Matthew Logan was tried jointly with Zachary Aaron Roan,1 Karl Kimpton, and Dennis Kermit Michels on federal charges2 of conspiracy, robbery, use and carrying of a firearm during a *824crime of violence, unlicensed dealing in firearms, and transportation and receipt of stolen firearms. These charges arose out of the trafficking of illegal guns from Minnesota to Chicago. Logan, with no prior criminal history, was convicted and sentenced to 45 years of imprisonment, primarily for the robbery conviction.
At the defendants’ trial, the district court permitted Detective Walsh to testify that Roan had confessed to committing the robbery of Lloyd’s Gun Shop with Logan. Walsh substituted the words “another individual” or “the other individual” for Logan’s proper name when he testified to Roan’s confession.
On appeal, a panel of this court affirmed Logan’s convictions for conspiracy, unlicensed dealing in firearms, and transportation and receipt of stolen firearms. The panel reversed his convictions for robbery and for use and carrying of a firearm in a crime of violence, finding these convictions were based on evidence admitted in violation of Logan’s constitutional rights. See United States v. Al-Muqsit, 191 F.3d 928, 945 (8th Cir.1999). The panel reviewed the United States Supreme Court’s opinions in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987), and Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 118 S.Ct. 1151, 140 L.Ed.2d 294 (1998), and held that Logan’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation was violated because the minor redactions in Roan’s confession were entirely useless in protecting Logan’s rights under the Constitution. I see no reason to depart from the panel opinion. Indeed, upon further review I am convinced the panel was correct.
The seminal case on the admissibility of a nontestifying defendant’s confession when it incriminates a codefendant is Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968). In Bruton, two defendants, Evans and Bruton, were tried jointly for armed postal robbery. Although Evans did not testify at trial, a postal inspector testified that Evans confessed that he and Bruton committed the robbery. At the end of the trial, the court instructed the jury not to use Evans’ confession as evidence of Bruton’s guilt, despite the fact that Evans named Bruton as his accomplice. See id. at 124-25, 134 n. 10, 88 S.Ct. 1620. The Court held that in a joint trial, the admission of a nontestify-ing defendant’s confession that inculpates a codefendant violates the codefendant’s Confrontation Clause rights. “Despite the concededly clear instructions to the jury to disregard Evans’ inadmissible hearsay evidence inculpating [Bruton], in the context of a joint trial we cannot accept limiting instructions as an adequate substitute for [Bruton]’s constitutional right of cross-examination. The effect is the same as if there had been no instruction at all.” Id. at 137, 88 S.Ct. 1620.
In Richardson v. Marsh, 481 U.S. 200, 107 S.Ct. 1702, 95 L.Ed.2d 176 (1987), the Court again took up the issue of the admission of one defendant’s confession in a joint trial. The defendant’s confession in Marsh did not facially incriminate the co-defendant, as it had been redacted to omit any reference to the codefendant. The Court recognized the difference between the case before it and Bruton: where Bruton involved a confession that was unredacted and facially incriminated a codefendant, in Marsh, nothing in the confession even alluded to the codefend-ant’s existence. It was only through other evidence introduced by the codefendant that she was linked to the confession. See id. at 203-04, 107 S.Ct. 1702. Holding that no violation occurred, the Court intimated that the proper inquiry in considering Bruton issues was whether a defendant’s confession incriminated a code-fendant on its face. See id. at 211, 107 S.Ct. 1702.
Had Marsh been the last time the Court spoke on this issue, the majority’s opinion would be more persuasive. However, in concluding that “the admissibility of a confession under Bruton is to be determined *825by viewing the redacted confession in isolation from the other evidence admitted at trial,” ante at 822, the majority ignores the tenets of Gray v. Maryland, 523 U.S. 185, 118 S.Ct. 1151, 140 L.Ed.2d 294 (1998), a case with similar facts and the most recent source of Supreme Court authority on this issue.
In Gray, the issue was precisely the same one we take up, that is, whether a nontestifying defendant’s confession, redacted only to omit the codefendant’s name, is admissible in the joint trial of the defendant and the codefendant. The Gray Court held that such a redaction violated Bruton, backing away from the narrow, “four-corners” analysis that the majority now endorses. See id. at 195-96, 118 S.Ct. 1151. In Gray, the codefendant’s name was replaced with a blank space. See id. at 192, 118 S.Ct. 1151. The Court acknowledged that Marsh appeared to place “outside the scope of Bruton’s rule those statements that incriminate inferentially,” and that “the jury must use inference to connect the statement in this redacted confession with the defendant.” Id. at 195, 118 S.Ct. 1151. However, as further stated by the Court:
inference pure and simple cannot make the critical difference, for if it did, then [Marsh \ would also place outside Bru-ton’s scope confessions that use shortened first names, nicknames, descriptions as unique as the red-haired, bearded, one-eyed man-with-a-limp, and perhaps even full names of defendants who are always known by a nickname.
Id. (citation and internal quotations omitted). Marsh did not indicate that inference itself is the critical point; rather, we are directed to consider “the kind of, not the simple fact of, inference.” Id. at 196, 118 S.Ct. 1151. If the redacted confession still leads the jury, making ordinary inferences, directly to the codefendant, a Bru-ton violation has occurred. See id.; United States v. Gonzalez, 183 F.3d 1315, 1322-23 (11th Cir.1999) (finding Bruton violation where government redacted defendant’s confession to refer to codefendant only by description, even though description could only be verified through other evidence); see also United States v. Long, 900 F.2d 1270, 1279-80 (8th Cir.1990) (concluding Bruton violation occurred when defendant’s redacted statement referred to co-defendant only as “someone” but other evidence “led the jury straight to the conclusion that ‘someone’ referred to [the co-defendant]”).
In this case, there was an abundance of evidence linking Logan to Roan’s redacted confession. Unlike the defendant in Marsh, all reference to Logan was not deleted. Rather, in relating the substance of Roan’s confession, Detective Walsh consistently referred to Logan as “another individual” or “the other individual” instead of using Logan’s proper name.
When Walsh referred to this “other individual,” it was clear he was talking about Logan. At the very outset of Logan’s joint trial, the district court informed the jury of the nature of the indictments. Roan and Logan were the only defendants charged with the robbery of Lloyd’s Gun Shop. Therefore, when Walsh referred to “another individual” who helped in the robbery, it was apparent even without other inferential evidence3 that the mystery person was Logan; he was the only other person charged with robbery. As such, a juror who “wonders to whom the [redaction] might refer need only lift his eyes to [the codefendant] sitting at counsel table, to find what will seem the obvious answer.” Gray, 523 U.S. at 193, 118 S.Ct. 1151.
I find the redaction in Logan’s case to be different from those we have recognized as acceptable in the past. We have al*826lowed the admission of a defendant’s confession in a joint trial where references to numerous actors were replaced by “we” or “they.” See United States v. Edwards, 159 F.3d 1117, 1125-26 (8th Cir.1998). In Edwards, the redactions did not “lead the jury directly to a nontestifying declarant’s codefendant.” Id. at 1125. A similar situation was presented in United States v. Jones, 101 F.3d 1263 (8th Cir.1996), where a codefendant’s name was replaced with “we” and “they.” There, we recognized that replacing proper names with pronouns may be acceptable where the pronouns “could have referred to anyone or any group of individuals acting with [the defendant],” and did not lead the jury directly to the codefendant. Id. at 1270. Terms such as “we” or “they” are terms of indefinite number and are more ambiguous than terms such as “another individual” or “the other individual.”
Further, the majority’s reliance on Jones, United States v. Williams, 936 F.2d 698 (2d Cir.1991), United States v. Vogt, 910 F.2d 1184 (4th Cir.1990), United States v. Sherlin, 67 F.3d 1208 (6th Cir.1995), and United States v. Hoac, 990 F.2d 1099 (9th Cir.1993), is misplaced. Each case was decided before the Supreme Court’s decision in Gray. To the extent that they stand for the proposition that a Bruton violation occurs only when a nontestifying defendant’s confession facially incriminates a co-defendant, Gray forecloses such a narrow analysis.
Finding a Bruton violation where Roan’s confession was redacted to refer to Logan as “another individual” or “the other individual” is consistent with recent decisions of other circuits. “Clearly, the use of [the defendant’s confession with the word ‘another’ in place of [the codefendantj’s name falls within the class of statements described in Gray as violative of Bruton.” United States v. Eskridge, 164 F.3d 1042, 1044 (7th Cir.1998); see also United States v. Peterson, 140 F.3d 819, 822 (9th Cir.1998) (holding Bruton violation occurred where defendant’s confession was redacted to refer to codefendant as “person X” because defendant was clearly “pointing an accusatory finger at someone and it was not difficult for the jury to determine that that person was the other defendant on trial”).
Marsh teaches that when Bruton issues loom, an acceptable way to reconcile preference for joint trials with Bruton’s constitutional mandate is to simply remove all reference to the codefendant in the defendant’s confession. See Marsh, 481 U.S. at 211, 107 S.Ct. 1702. I adhere to this approach.4
This case presents a clear Bruton violation. I continue to believe that the error in admitting Roan’s confession was not harmless, for the reasons stated in the panel opinion. See United States v. Al-Muqsit, 191 F.3d 928, 943-45. I would reverse Logan’s convictions for robbery and for use and carrying of a firearm in a crime of violence and remand for resen-tencing on the remaining convictions. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. Subsequent to the trial, Roan changed his name to Abdul Wahid Al-Muqsit. For the sake of clarity, I refer to him by the name he used during the crimes and trial.

. It should be noted that Logan was previously tried for murder by the state of Minnesota for the same course of conduct. He was acquitted. This federal prosecution followed.

. Indictments, of course, are not evidence. Thus, when the indictment linked Logan to the confession, he was not being linked by other trial evidence, but rather by the ordinary inferences a juror would be expected to make immediately upon hearing the redacted confession. See Gray, 523 U.S. at 196, 118 S.Ct. 1151.

. The government argues that such a policy would inevitably result in skewed evidence. However, it must be remembered that but lor the joint trial, the evidence would not be admitted in the codefendant’s trial at all. Thus, to the extent the evidence is skewed, it is skewed so as to remain constitutionally admissible. If the government finds such a circumstance untenable, it can opt to try the defendants separately. The preference for judicial efficiency may not extend so far as to trample a defendant's constitutional right to confront his accusers.