MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question, last considered in Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U.S. 232, whether the conviction of a defendant at a joint trial should be set aside
A joint trial of petitioner and one Evans in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri resulted in the conviction of both by a jury on a federal charge of armed postal robbery, 18 U. S. C. § 2114. A postal inspector testified that Evans orally confessed to him that Evans and petitioner committed the armed robbery. The postal inspector obtained the oral confession, and another in which Evans admitted he had an accomplice whom he would not name, in the course of two interrogations of Evans at the city jail in St. Louis, Missouri, where Evans was held in custody on state criminal charges. Both petitioner and Evans appealed their convictions to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. That court set aside Evans' conviction on the ground that his oral confessions to the postal inspector should not have been received in evidence against him. 375 F.2d 355, 361.
The basic premise of Delli Paoli was that it is "reasonably possible for the jury to follow" sufficiently clear instructions to disregard the confessor's extrajudicial statement that his codefendant participated with him in committing the crime. 352 U. S., at 239. If it were true that the jury disregarded the reference to the codefendant, no question would arise under the Confrontation Clause, because by hypothesis the case is treated as if the confessor made no statement inculpating the nonconfessor. But since Delli Paoli was decided this Court has effectively repudiated its basic premise. Before discussing this, we pause to observe that in Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, we confirmed "that the right of cross-examination is included in the right of an accused in a criminal case to confront the witnesses against him" secured by the Sixth Amendment, id., at 404; "a major reason underlying the constitutional confrontation rule is to give a defendant charged with crime an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses against him." Id., at 406-407.
We applied Pointer in Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, in circumstances analogous to those in the present case. There two persons, Loyd and Douglas, accused
Delli Paoli assumed that this encroachment on the right to confrontation could be avoided by the instruction to the jury to disregard the inadmissible hearsay evidence.
That dissent challenged the basic premise of Delli Paoli that a properly instructed jury would ignore the confessor's inculpation of the nonconfessor in determining the latter's guilt. "The fact of the matter is that too often such admonition against misuse is intrinsically ineffective in that the effect of such a nonadmissible declaration cannot be wiped from the brains of the jurors. The admonition therefore becomes a futile collocation of words and fails of its purpose as a legal protection to defendants against whom such a declaration should not tell." 352 U. S., at 247. The dissent went on to say, as quoted in the cited note in Jackson, "The government should not have the windfall of having the jury be influenced by evidence against a defendant which, as a matter of law, they should not consider but which they cannot put out of their minds." Id., at 248. To the same effect, and also cited in the Jackson note, is the statement of Mr. Justice Jackson in his concurring opinion in Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 453: "The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury . . . all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction. . . ."
In addition to Jackson, our action in 1966 in amending Rule 14 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure also evidences our repudiation of Delli Paoli's basic premise. Rule 14 authorizes a severance where it appears that a defendant might be prejudiced by a joint trial.
Those who have defended reliance on the limiting instruction in this area have cited several reasons in support. Judge Learned Hand, a particularly severe critic of the proposition that juries could be counted on to disregard inadmissible hearsay,
Another reason cited in defense of Delli Paoli is the justification for joint trials in general, the argument being that the benefits of joint proceedings should not have to be sacrificed by requiring separate trials in order to use the confession against the declarant. Joint trials do conserve state funds, diminish inconvenience to witnesses and public authorities, and avoid delays in bringing those accused of crime to trial. But the answer to this argument was cogently stated by Judge Lehman of the New York Court of Appeals, dissenting in People v. Fisher, 249 N.Y. 419, 432, 164 N. E. 336, 341:
Finally, the reason advanced by the majority in Delli Paoli was to tie the result to maintenance of the jury system. "Unless we proceed on the basis that the jury will follow the court's instructions where those instructions are clear and the circumstances are such that the jury can reasonably be expected to follow them, the jury system makes little sense." 352 U. S., at 242. We agree that there are many circumstances in which this reliance is justified. Not every admission of inadmissible hearsay or other evidence can be considered to be reversible error unavoidable through limiting instructions; instances occur in almost every trial where inadmissible evidence creeps in, usually inadvertently. "A defendant is entitled to a fair trial but not a perfect one." Lutwak v. United States, 344 U.S. 604, 619; see Hopt v. Utah, 120 U.S. 430, 438; cf. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52 (a). It is not unreasonable to conclude that in many such cases the jury can and will follow the trial judge's instructions to disregard such information. Nevertheless, as was recognized in Jackson v. Denno, supra, there are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored. Compare Hopt v. Utah, supra; Throckmorton v. Holt, 180 U.S. 552, 567; Mora v. United States, 190 F.2d 749; Holt v. United States, 94 F.2d 90. Such a context is presented here, where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant,
We, of course, acknowledge the impossibility of determining whether in fact the jury did or did not ignore Evans' statement inculpating petitioner in determining petitioner's guilt. But that was also true in the analogous situation in Jackson v. Denno, and was not regarded as militating against striking down the New York procedure
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs in the result for the reasons stated in the dissent in Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U.S. 232, 246.
MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, concurring.
I join the opinion and judgment of the Court. Although I did not agree with the decision in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 (see id., at 427), I accept its holding and share the Court's conclusion that it compels the overruling of Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U.S. 232.
Quite apart from Jackson v. Denno, however, I think it clear that the underlying rationale of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause precludes reliance upon cautionary instructions when the highly damaging out-of-court
MR. JUSTICE WHITE, dissenting.
Whether or not Evans' confession was inadmissible against him, nothing in that confession which was relevant and material to Bruton's case was admissible against Bruton. As to him it was inadmissible hearsay, a presumptively unreliable out-of-court statement of a nonparty who was not a witness subject to cross-examination. Admitting Evans' confession against Bruton would require a new trial unless the error was harmless.
The trial judge in this case had no different view. He admitted Evans' confession only against Evans, not against Bruton, and carefully instructed the jury to disregard it in determining Bruton's guilt or innocence.
The Court concedes that there are many instances in which reliance on limiting instructions is justified— "Not every admission of inadmissible hearsay or other evidence can be considered to be reversible error unavoidable through limiting instructions; instances occur in almost every trial where inadmissible evidence creeps in, usually inadvertently." Ante, at 135. The Court asserts, however, that the hazards to the defendant of permitting the jury to hear a codefendant's confession implicating him are so severe that we must assume the jury's inability to heed a limiting instruction. This was the holding of the Court with respect to a confession of the defendant himself in Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368 (1964). There are good reasons, however, for distinguishing the codefendant's confession from that of the defendant himself and for trusting in the jury's ability to disregard the former when instructed to do so.
First, the defendant's own confession is probably the most probative and damaging evidence that can be admitted against him. Though itself an out-of-court statement, it is admitted as reliable evidence because it is an admission of guilt by the defendant and constitutes
Second, it must be remembered that a coerced confession is not excluded because it is thought to be unreliable. Regardless of how true it may be, it is excluded because specific provisions of the Constitution demand it, whatever the consequences for the criminal trial. In Jackson itself it was stated that "[i]t is now axiomatic that a defendant in a criminal case is deprived of due process of law if his conviction is founded, in whole or in part, upon an involuntary confession, without regard for the truth or falsity of the confession . . . ." 378 U. S., at 376. See id., at 385-386. In giving prospective effect only to its rules in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), the Court specifically reaffirmed the principle that coerced confessions are inadmissible regardless of their truth or falsity, Johnson v. New Jersey, 384 U.S. 719, 729, n. 9 (1966). The Court acknowledged that the rules of Miranda apply to situations "in which the danger [of unreliable statements] is not necessarily as great as when the accused is subjected to overt and obvious coercion." Id., at 730. And, in Tehan v. United States ex rel. Shott, 382 U.S. 406, 416 (1966), holding the rule of Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609 (1965), not retroactive, the Court quite explicitly stated that "the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination is not
The situation in this case is very different. Here we deal with a codefendant's confession which is admitted only against the codefendant and with a firm instruction to the jury to disregard it in determining the defendant's guilt or innocence. That confession cannot compare with the defendant's own confession in evidentiary value. As to the defendant, the confession of the codefendant is wholly inadmissible. It is hearsay, subject to all the dangers of inaccuracy which characterize hearsay generally. Furthermore, the codefendant is no more than an eyewitness, the accuracy of whose testimony about the defendant's conduct is open to more doubt than would be the defendant's own account of his actions. More than this, however, the statements of a codefendant have traditionally been viewed with special suspicion. Crawford v. United States, 212 U.S. 183, 204 (1909); Holmgren v. United States, 217 U.S. 509, 523-524 (1910). See also Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 495 (1917); Mathes, Jury Instruction and Forms for Federal Criminal Cases, 27 F. R. D. 39, 68-69 (1961). Due to his strong motivation to implicate the defendant and to exonerate himself, a codefendant's statements about what the defendant said or did are less credible than ordinary hearsay evidence. Whereas the defendant's own confession possesses greater reliability and evidentiary
The defendant's own confession may not be used against him if coerced, not because it is untrue but to protect other constitutional values. The jury may have great difficulty understanding such a rule and following an instruction to disregard the confession. In contrast, the codefendant's admissions cannot enter into the determination of the defendant's guilt or innocence because they are unreliable. This the jury can be told and can understand. Just as the Court believes that juries can reasonably be expected to disregard ordinary hearsay or other inadmissible evidence when instructed to do so, I believe juries will disregard the portions of a codefendant's confession implicating the defendant when so instructed. Indeed, if we must pick and choose between hearsay as to which limiting instructions will be deemed effective and hearsay the admission of which cannot be cured by instructions, codefendants' admissions belong in the former category rather than the latter, for they are not only hearsay but hearsay which is doubly suspect. If the Court is right in believing that a jury can be counted on to ignore a wide range of hearsay statements which it is told to ignore, it seems very odd to me to question its ability to put aside the codefendant's hearsay statements about what the defendant did.
It is a common experience of all men to be informed of "facts" relevant to an issue requiring their judgment, and yet to disregard those "facts" because of sufficient grounds for discrediting their veracity or the reliability of their source. Responsible judgment would be impossible but for the ability of men to focus their attention wholly on reliable and credible evidence, and jurymen are no less capable of exercising this capacity than other
The rule which the Court announces today will severely limit the circumstances in which defendants may be tried together for a crime which they are both charged with committing. Unquestionably, joint trials are more economical and minimize the burden on witnesses, prosecutors, and courts. They also avoid delays in bringing those accused of crime to trial. This much the Court concedes. It is also worth saying that separate trials are apt to have varying consequences for legally indistinguishable defendants. The unfairness of this is confirmed by the common prosecutorial experience of seeing codefendants who are tried separately strenuously jockeying for position with regard to who should be the first to be tried.
In view of the practical difficulties of separate trials and their potential unfairness, I am disappointed that the Court has not spelled out how the federal courts might conduct their business consistent with today's opinion. I would suppose that it will be necessary to exclude all extrajudicial confessions unless all portions of them which implicate defendants other than the declarant are effectively deleted. Effective deletion will probably require not only omission of all direct and indirect inculpations of codefendants but also of any statement that could be employed against those defendants once their identity is otherwise established. Of course, the deletion must not be such that it will distort the statements to the substantial prejudice of either the declarant or the Government. If deletion is not feasible, then the Government will have to choose either not to
I would hope, but am not sure, that by using these procedures the federal courts would escape reversal under today's ruling. Even so, I persist in believing that the reversal of Delli Paoli unnecessarily burdens the already difficult task of conducting criminal trials, and therefore I dissent in this case.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN joins this opinion without abandoning his original disagreement with Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 427, expressed in his dissenting opinion in that case.
FootNotes
The instructions to the jury included the following:
"A confession made outside of court by one defendant may not be considered as evidence against the other defendant, who was not present and in no way a party to the confession. Therefore, if you find that a confession was in fact voluntarily and intentionally made by the defendant Evans, you should consider it as evidence in the case against Evans, but you must not consider it, and should disregard it, in considering the evidence in the case against the defendant Bruton.
.....
"It is your duty to give separate, personal consideration to the cause of each individual defendant. When you do so, you should analyze what the evidence shows with respect to that individual, leaving out of consideration entirely any evidence admitted solely against some other defendant. Each defendant is entitled to have his case determined from his own acts and statements and the other evidence in the case which may be applicable to him."
"It is impossible realistically to suppose that when the twelve good men and women had Jones' confession in the privacy of the jury room, not one yielded to the nigh irresistible temptation to fill in the blanks with the keys Kuhle had provided and ask himself the intelligent question to what extent Jones' statement supported Kuhle's testimony, or that if anyone did yield, his colleagues effectively persuaded him to dismiss the answers from his mind." 365 F. 2d, at 215.
State decisions which have rejected Delli Paoli include People v. Aranda, 63 Cal.2d 518, 407 P.2d 265; State v. Young, 46 N.J. 152, 215 A.2d 352. See also People v. Barbaro, 395 Ill. 264, 69 N.E.2d 692; State v. Rosen, 151 Ohio St. 339, 86 N.E.2d 24.
It has been suggested that the limiting instruction actually compounds the jury's difficulty in disregarding the inadmissible hearsay. See Broeder, The University of Chicago Jury Project, 38 Neb. L. Rev. 744, 753-755 (1959).
Compare E. Morgan, Some Problems of Proof Under the Anglo-American System of Litigation 105 (1956), who suggests that the use of limiting instructions fosters an inconsistent attitude toward juries by "treating them at times as a group of low-grade morons and at other times as men endowed with a superhuman ability to control their emotions and intellects." See also Shepard v. United States, 290 U.S. 96, 104; Meltzer, Involuntary Confessions: The Allocation of Responsibility Between Judge and Jury, 21 U. Chi. L. Rev. 317, 326 (1954).
In this case Evans' confessions were offered in evidence through the oral testimony of the postal inspector. It has been said: "Where the confession is offered in evidence by means of oral testimony, redaction is patently impractical. To expect a witness to relate X's confession without including any of its references to Y is to ignore human frailty. Again, it is unlikely that an intentional or accidental slip by the witness could be remedied by instructions to disregard." Note, 3 Col. J. of Law & Soc. Prob. 80, 88 (1967).
Some courts have promulgated rules governing the use of the confessions. See n. 4, supra. See also rules suggested by Judge Frank, dissenting in Delli Paoli v. United States, 229 F.2d 319, 324.
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