Court Opinion

ID: 9848201
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:14:27.481695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:07.356926
License: Public Domain

Ingram, Justice,
concurring specially. I think it needs to be *406stated that admission of this statement was error in the circumstances of this case. In Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (88 SC 1620, 20 LE2d 476), the Supreme Court of the United States "held that, despite instructions to the jury to disregard the implicating statements in determining the codefendant’s guilt or innocence, admission at a joint trial of a defendant’s extrajudicial confession implicating a codefendant violated that codefendant’s right of cross examination secured by the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment.” Roberts v. Russell, 392 U. S. 293 (88 SC 1921, 20 LE2d 1100). Bruton involved a federal prosecution but the Supreme Court of the United States noted in its opinion in Roberts v. Russell, supra (a state prosecution), that the right of cross examination, secured by the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment, applies to the state through the Fourteenth Amendment and then applied the Bruton rule in the Roberts case. Clearly then, in the present case, it was error to admit into evidence at this joint trial the codefendant’s statement implicating the appellant when such codefendant refused to testify. It denied the appellant an opportunity to confront and cross examine this "witness” against him. The trial judge’s instructions to the jury cautioning them not to consider the statement in determining the guilt or innocence of appellant was ineffectual under the Bruton rule. A severance of the trial of these two defendants would have avoided this constitutional difficulty.
Having said this, I join the majority of the court in holding that, under the facts of this case, admission of the statement was harmless error beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence of appellant’s guilt, independent of the codefendant’s statement, is quite substantial, and under the "harmless error” case of Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427, supra, cited in the majority opinion, a reversal is avoided in this case. The Bruton rule was urged in Schneble and the Supreme Court of the United States held that "Any violation of Bruton that might have occurred was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in view of the overwhelming evidence of [appellant’s] guilt.” The rationale of that case is applicable to the present case and, therefore, I join the judgment of affirmance rendered by the majority opinion.