Court Opinion

ID: 9738531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:55:45.66734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:06.774779
License: Public Domain

Opinion Concurring in Result
DeBruler, J.
I agree with my Brother Prentice that a Bruton violation occurred when the statments of co-defendants, Stone and Williams, were admitted into- evidence and appellant, Rogers, was unable to cross-examine them due to the fact that such co-defendants did not take the witness stand and testify. The statements as redacted were clearly inculpatory when considered in connection with the statement of James who had participated in the crime and whose statement was admitted at trial. That statement of James described the events of the crime by place and time and stated that the crime had been committed by James, Barber, Rogers, Stone and Williams. The statements redacted describe the events of the crime as being at the same time and place, but identified the perpetrators of the crime as having been a group of an unspecified number. The jury was presented at the trial with the five persons comprising the group as described by the James statement, namely, James himself, and the four on trial at the time, including Rogers. The jury would, therefore, have *377inferred that the group referred to in the redacted statements included the appellant, Rogers.
However, unlike my Brother Prentice, I consider the violation of appellant’s confrontation rights to be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The United States Supreme Court found a Bmton violation harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in Harrington v. California, (1969) 395 U.S. 250, 89 S.Ct. 1726, 23 L.Ed.2d 284, under circumstances very similar to those before us. The evidence recited at the end of Section I of the majority opinion serves to support this conclusion.
I likewise concur in result because there is a separate and identifiable issue in my view which relates to the denial of the motion for a separate trial. The motion was based upon his contention that he would be prejudiced by being required to join in the peremptory challenges allotted to the defendants and limited to ten in number under Ind. Code § 35-1-30-2 (Burns 1975). In order to avoid this effect, appellant sought severance, the remedy suggested by this Court in Martin v. State, (1974) 262 Ind. 232, 317 N.E.2d 430 (on rehearing). A motion on this basis should be denied absent a showing by the movant of a substantial and significant interest implicated by the jury selection process which is not also held by co-defendants. Here no such showing was made and the motion was therefore properly denied.