Parker v. Randolph

442 U.S. 62, 99 S. Ct. 2132, 60 L. Ed. 2d 713, 1979 U.S. LEXIS 118

Opinions

Mr. Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court (Parts I and III) together with an opinion (Part II), and announced the judgment of the Court.

in which The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice White joined,

In Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968), this Court reversed the robbery conviction of a defendant who had been implicated in the crime by his codefendant’s extrajudicial confession. Because the codefendant had not taken the stand at the joint trial and thus could not be cross-examined, the Court held that admission of the codefendant’s confession had deprived the defendant of his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The issue before us in this case is whether Bruton requires reversal of a defendant’s conviction when the defendant himself has confessed and his confession “interlocks” with and supports the confession of his codefendant. We hold that it does not.

I

Respondents were convicted of murder committed during the commission of a robbery and were sentenced to life imprisonment. The cast of characters playing out the scenes that led up to the fatal shooting could have come from the pen of Bret Harte.¹ The story began in June 1970, when one William Douglas, a professional gambler from Las Vegas, Nev., arrived in Memphis, Tenn., calling himself Ray Blay-lock and carrying a gun and a deck of cards. It ended on the evening of July 6, 1970, when Douglas was shot and killed in a Memphis apartment.

Testimony at the trial in the Tennessee state court showed that one Woppy Gaddy, who was promised a cut of Douglas’ take, arranged a game of chance between Douglas and Robert Wood, a sometime Memphis gambler. Unwilling to trust the outcome of the contest entirely to luck or skill, . Douglas marked the cards, and by game’s end Robert Wood and his money had been separated. A second encounter between the two men yielded similar results, and Wood grew suspicious of Douglas’ good fortune. In order to determine whether and how Douglas was cheating, Wood brought to the third game an acquaintance named Tommy Thomas, who had a reputation of being a “pretty good poker player.” Unknown to Wood, however, Thomas’ father and Douglas had been close friends; Thomas, predictably, threw in his lot with Douglas, purposefully lost some $1,000, and reported to Wood that the game was clean. Wood nonetheless left the third game convinced that he was being cheated and intent on recouping his now considerable losses. He explained the situation to his brother, Joe E. Wood, and the two men decided to relieve Douglas of his ill-gotten gains by staging a robbery of the upcoming fourth game.

At this juncture respondents Randolph, Pickens, and Hamilton entered the picture. To carry out the staged robbery, Joe Wood enlisted respondent Hamilton, who was one of his employees, and the latter in turn associated respondents Randolph and Pickens. Douglas and Robert Wood sat down to the fourth and final contest on the evening of July 6, 1970. Joe Wood and Thomas were present in the room as spectators. During the course of the game, Douglas armed himself with a .38-caliber pistol and an automatic shotgun; in response to this unexpected development Joe Wood pulled a derringer pistol on Douglas and Thomas, gave the gun to Robert Wood, and left to tell respondents to move in on the game. Before respondents arrived, however, Douglas reached for his pistol and was shot and killed by Robert Wood. Moments later, respondents and Joe Wood broke down the apartment door, Robert Wood gathered up the cash left on the table, and the gang of five fled into the night. Respondents were subsequently apprehended by the police and confessed to their involvement in the crime.

Respondents and the Wood brothers were jointly tried and convicted of murder during the commission of a robbery. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-2402 (1975).² Each defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment. Robert Wood took the stand at trial, admitting that he had killed Douglas, but claiming that the shooting was in self-defense. Thomas described Douglas’ method of cheating at cards and admitted his complicity in the fraud on Robert Wood. He also testified in substance that he was present in the room when Joe Wood produced the derringer and when Robert Wood shot and killed Douglas.

None of the respondents took the stand. Thomas could not positively identify any of them, and although Robert Wood named Hamilton as one of the three men involved in the staged robbery, he did not clearly identify Randolph and Pickens as the other two. The State’s case against respondents thus rested primarily on their oral confessions, found by the trial court to have been freely and voluntarily given, which were admitted into evidence through the testimony of several officers of the Memphis Police Department.³ A written confession signed by Pickens was also admitted into evidence over his objection that it had been obtained in violation of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). The trial court instructed the jury that each confession could be used only against the defendant who gave it and could not be considered as evidence of a codefendant’s guilt.

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed respondents’ convictions, holding that they could not be guilty of felony murder since Douglas had been shot before they arrived on the scene and, alternatively, that admission of their confessions at the joint trial violated this Court’s decision in Bruton. The Tennessee Supreme Court in turn reversed the Court of Criminal Appeals and reinstated the convictions. Because “each and every defendant either through words or actions demonstrated his knowledge that 'killing may be necessary,’ ” App. 237, the court held that respondents’ agreement to participate in the robbery rendered them liable under the Tennessee felony-murder statute for Douglas’ death. The Tennessee Supreme Court also disagreed with the Court of Criminal Appeals that Bruton had been violated,- emphasizing that the confession at issue in Bruton had inculpated a nonconfessing defendant in a joint trial at which neither defendant took the stand. Here, in contrast, the “interlocking inculpatory confessions” of respondents Randolph, Pickens, and Hamilton, “clearly demonstrated the involvement of each, as to crucial facts such as time, location, felonious activity, and awareness of the overall plan or scheme.” App. 245. Accordingly, the Tennessee Supreme Court concluded: “The fact that jointly tried codefendants have confessed precludes a violation of the Bruton rule where the confessions are similar in material aspects.” Ibid., quoting State v. Elliott, 524 S. W. 2d 473, 477-478 (Tenn. 1975).

The United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee thereafter granted respondents’ applications for writs of habeas corpus, ruling that their rights under Bruton had been violated and that introduction of respondent Pickens’ uncounseled written confession had violated his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, supra. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that admission of the confessions violated the rule announced in Bruton and that the error was not harmless since the evidence against each respondent, even considering his confession, was “not so overwhelming as to compel the jury verdict of guilty . . . .” 575 P. 2d 1178, 1182 (1978). The Court of Appeals frankly acknowledged that its decision conflicts with decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit holding the Bruton rule inapplicable “[w]here the jury has heard not only a codefendant’s confession but the defendant’s own [interlocking] confession . . . .” United States ex rel. Catanzaro v. Mancusi, 404 F. 2d 296, 300 (1968), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 942 (1970). Accord, United States ex rel. Stanbridge v. Zelker, 514 P. 2d 45, 48-50, cert. denied, 423 U. S. 872 (1975); United States ex rel. Duff v. Zelker, 452 F. 2d 1009, 1010 (1971), cert. denied, 406 U. S. 932 (1972). We granted certiorari in this case to resolve that conflict.⁴ 439 U. S. 978 (1978).

II

In Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232 (1957), a nontestifying codefendant's confession, which incriminated a defendant who had not confessed, was admitted at a joint trial over defendant’s hearsay objection. Concluding that “it was reasonably possible for the jury to follow” the trial court’s instruction to consider the confession only against the de-clarant, this Court held that admission of the confession did not constitute reversible error. Little more than a decade later, however, Delli Paoli was expressly overruled in Bruton v. United States. In that case, defendants Bruton and Evans were convicted of armed postal robbery after a joint trial. Although Evans did not take the stand, a postal inspector was allowed to testify that Evans had orally confessed to having committed the robbery with Bruton. The trial judge instructed the jury that Evans’ confession was competent evidence against Evans, but was inadmissible hearsay against Bruton and therefore could not be considered in determining Bruton’s guilt.

This Court reversed Bruton’s conviction, noting that despite the trial court’s admittedly clear limiting instruction, “the introduction of Evans’ confession added substantial, perhaps even critical, weight to the Government’s case in a form not subject to cross-examination.” 391 U. S., at 127-128. Bruton was therefore held to have been denied his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. The Bruton court reasoned that although in many cases the jury can and will follow the trial judge’s instruction to disregard inadmissible evidence,

“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. Such a context is presented here, where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial. Not only are the incriminations devastating to the defendant but their credibility is inevitably suspect, a fact recognized when accomplices do take the stand and the jury is instructed to weigh their testimony carefully given the recognized motivation to shift blame onto others. The unreliability of such evidence is intolerably compounded when the alleged accomplice, as here, does not testify and cannot be tested by cross-examination. It was against such threats to a fair trial that the Confrontation Clause was directed.” Id., at 135-136 (citations and footnotes omitted).

One year after Bruton was decided, this Court rejected the notion that erroneous admission at a joint trial of evidence such as that introduced in Bruton automatically requires reversal of an otherwise valid conviction. See Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969). In some cases, the properly admitted evidence of guilt is so overwhelming, and the prejudicial effect of the codefendant’s admission so insignificant by comparison, that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that introduction of the admission at trial was harmless error.⁵

Petitioner urges us to follow the reasoning of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to hold that the Bruton rule does not apply in the context of interlocking confessions. Alternatively, he contends that if introduction of interlocking confessions at a joint trial does violate Bruton, the error is all but automatically to be deemed harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We agree with petitioner that admission at the joint trial of respondents’ interlocking confessions did not infringe respondents’ right of confrontation secured by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, but prefer to cast the issue in a slightly broader form than that posed by petitioner.

Bruton recognized that admission at a joint trial of the incriminating extrajudicial statements of a nontestifying codefendant can have “devastating” consequences to a non-confessing defendant, adding “substantial, perhaps even critical, weight to the Government’s case.” 391 U. S., at 128. Such statements go to the jury untested by cross-examination and, indeed, perhaps unanswered altogether unless the defendant waives his Fifth Amendment privilege and takes the stand. The prejudicial impact of a codefendant’s confession upon an incriminated defendant who has, insofar as the jury is concerned, maintained his innocence from the beginning is simply too great in such cases to be cured by a limiting instruction. The same cannot be said, however, when the defendant’s own confession — “probably the most probative and damaging evidence that can be admitted against him,” id., at 139 (White, J., dissenting) — is properly introduced at trial. ' The defendant is “the most knowledgeable and unimpeachable source of information about his past conduct,” id., at 140 (White, J., dissenting), and one can scarcely imagine evidence more damaging to his defense than his own admission of guilt. Thus, the incriminating statements of a codefendant will seldom, if ever, be of the “devastating” character referred to in Bruton when the incriminated defendant has admitted his own guilt. The right protected by Bruton — the “constitutional right of cross-examination,” id., at 137 — has far less practical value to a defendant who has confessed to the crime than to one who has consistently maintained his innocence. Successfully impeaching a codefendant’s confession on cross-examination would likely yield small advantage to the defendant whose own admission of guilt stands before the jury unchallenged. Nor does the natural “motivation to shift blame onto others,” recognized by the Bruton Court to render the incriminating statements of codefendants “inevitably suspect,” id., at 136, require application of the Bruton rule when the incriminated defendant has corroborated his codefendant’s statements by heaping blame onto himself.

The right of confrontation conferred by the Sixth Amendment is a safeguard to ensure the fairness and accuracy of criminal trials, see Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 89 (1970), and its reach cannot be divorced from the system of trial by jury contemplated by the Constitution. A crucial assumption underlying that system is that juries will follow the instructions given them by the trial judge. Were this not so, it would be pointless for a trial court to instruct a jury, and even more pointless for an appellate court to reverse a criminal conviction because the jury was improperly instructed. The Confrontation Clause has never been held to bar the admission into evidence of every relevant extrajudicial statement made by a nontestifying declarant simply because it in some way incriminates the defendant. See, e. g., id., at 80; Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237, 240-244 (1895). And an instruction directing the jury to consider a codefendant’s extrajudicial statement only against its source has been found sufficient to avoid offending the confrontation right of the implicated defendant in numerous decisions of this Court.⁶

When, as in Bruton, the confessing codefendant has chosen not to take the stand and the implicated defendant has made no extrajudicial admission of guilt, limiting instructions cannot be accepted as adequate to safeguard the defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause. Under such circumstances, the “practical and human limitations of the jury system,” Bruton v. United States, supra, at 135, override the theoretically sound premise that a jury will follow the trial court’s instructions. But when the defendant’s own confession is properly before the jury, we believe that the constitutional scales tip the other way. The possible prejudice resulting from the failure of the jury to follow the trial court’s instructions is not so “devastating” or “vital” to the confessing defendant to require departure from the general rule allowing admission of evidence with limiting instructions.⁷ We therefore hold that admission of interlocking confessions with proper limiting instructions conforms to the requirements of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.⁸ Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to respondents Hamilton and Randolph is reversed.

III

The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s granting of habeas corpus relief to respondent Pickens on the additional ground that his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), had been violated. Although petitioner sought review of this ruling, our grant of certiorari was limited to the Bruton issue. We thus have no occasion to pass on the merits of the Court of Appeals’ Miranda ruling. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to respondent Pickens is affirmed.

Affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Mr. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

1 As the Court of Appeals aptly commented: “This appeal involves a sequence of events which have the flavor of the old West before the law ever crossed the Pecos. The difference is that here there are no heroes and here there was a trial.” 575 F. 2d 1178, 1179 (CA6 1978).

2 Tennessee Code Ann. §39-2402 (1975) provides in pertinent part as follows:

“An' individual commits murder in the first degree if . . .

“(4) he commits a willful, deliberate and malicious killing or murder during the perpetration of any arson, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny, kidnapping, aircraft piracy, or unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb.”

3 Each of the confessions was subjected to a process of redaction in which references by the confessing defendant to other defendants were replaced with the words “blank” or “another person.” As the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit observed below, the confessions were nevertheless “such as to leave no possible doubt in the jurors’ minds concerning the (person[s]’ referred to.” 575 F. 2d, at 1180.

4 The conflict extends throughout the Courts of Appeals. The Courts of Appeals for the Third and Sixth Circuits have expressly ruled that the Bruton rule applies in the context of interlocking confessions, see Hodges v. Rose, 570 F. 2d 643 (CA6 1978); United States v. DiGilio, 538 F. 2d 972, 981-983 (CA3 1976), cert. denied sub nom. Lupo v. United States, 429 U. S. 1038 (1977), and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has done so impliedly, see Ignacio v. Guam, 413 F. 2d 513, 515-516 (1969), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 943 (1970). In addition to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, at least four other Courts of Appeals have rejected the Bruton claims of confessing defendants. Cases frqm the Fifth and Seventh Circuits have reasoned that the Bruton rule does not apply in the context of interlocking confessions and that, even if it does, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Mack v. Maggio, 538 F. 2d 1129, 1130 (CA5 1976); United States v. Spinks, 470 F. 2d 64, 65-66 (CA7), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 1011 (1972). Two other Courts of Appeals have rejected the Bruton claims of confessing defendants, refusing to concern themselves “with the legal nicety as to whether the . . . case is 'without’ the Bruton rule, or is 'within’ Bruton [and] the violation thereof constitutes] only harmless error.” Metropolis v. Turner, 437 F. 2d 207, 208-209 (CA10 1971); accord, United States v. Walton, 538 F. 2d 1348, 1353— 1354 (CA8), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1025 (1976). State-court decisions in this area are in similar disarray. Compare, e. g., Stewart v. State, 257 Ark. 753, 519 S. W. 2d 733 (1975), and People v. Moll, 26 N. Y. 2d 1, 256 N. E. 2d 185, cert. denied sub nom. Stanbridge v. New York, 398 U. S. 911 (1970), with People v. Rosochacki, 41 Ill. 2d 483, 244 N. E. 2d 136 (1969), and State v. Oliver, 160 Conn. 85, 273 A. 2d 867 (1970).

5 In Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969), four defendants were found guilty of murder after a joint trial. Defendant Harrington’s extrajudicial statements placed him at the scene of the crime, but “fell short of a confession.” Id., at 252. His three codefendants, however, confessed, and their confessions were introduced at trial with the instruction that the jury was to consider each confession only against its source. One of Harrington’s codefendants, whose confession implicated Harrington, took the stand and was subject to cross-examination. The other two codefend-ants, whose statements corroborated Harrington's admitted presence at the scene of the crime, did not take the stand. Noting the overwhelming evidence of Harrington’s guilt, and the relatively insignificant prejudicial impact of his codefendants’ statements, the Court held that “the lack of opportunity to cross-examine [the non-testifying co-defendants] constituted harmless error under the rule of Chapman [v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967)].” Id., at 253.

On two subsequent occasions, this Court has applied the harmless-error doctrine to claimed violations of Bruton. In Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427 (1972), Schneble and a codefendant were found guilty of murder following a joint trial. Although neither defendant took the stand, police officers were allowed to testify as to a detailed confession given by Schneble and a statement given by his codefendant which tended to corroborate certain portions of Schneble’s confession. We assumed, without deciding, that admission of the codefendant’s statement had violated Bruton, but held that in view of the overwhelming evidence of Schneble’s guilt and the comparatively insignificant impact of the codefendant’s statement, “any violation of Bruton that may have occurred at petitioner’s trial was harmless [error] beyond a reasonable doubt.” 405 U. S., at 428 (emphasis added).

In Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223 (1973), the prosecution introduced police testimony regarding extrajudicial statements made by two nontestifying codefendants'. Each statement implicated both of the co-defendants in the crimes charged. Neither codefendant took the stand, and the police testimony was admitted into evidence at their joint trial. Because the Solicitor General conceded that the statements were admitted into evidence in violation of Bruton, we had no occasion to consider the question whether introduction of the interlocking confessions violated Bruton. Proceeding from the Solicitor General's concession, we held that the police testimony “was merely cumulative of other overwhelming and largely uncontroverted evidence properly before the jury.” 411 U. S., at 231. Thus, any Bruton error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

6 In Opper v. United States, 348 U. S. 84 (1954), petitioner contended that the trial court had erred in overruling his motion for severance, arguing that the jury may have improperly considered statements of his co-defendant, which were inadmissible as to petitioner, in finding petitioner guilty. This Court rejected the contention:

“It was within the sound discretion of the trial judge as to whether the defendants should be tried together or severally and there is nothing in the record to indicate an abuse of such discretion when petitioner’s motion for severance was overruled. The trial judge here made clear and repeated admonitions to the jury at appropriate times that Hollifield’s incriminatory statements were not to be considered in establishing the guilt of the petitioner. To say that the jury might have been confused amounts to nothing more than an unfounded speculation that the jurors disregarded clear instructions of the court in arriving at their verdict. Our theory of trial relies upon the ability of a jury to follow instructions. There is nothing in this record to call for reversal because of any confusion or injustice arising from the joint trial. The record contains substantial competent evidence upon which the jury could find petitioner guilty.” Id., at 95 (footnote omitted).

See, e. g., Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U. S. 539, 552-553 (1947).

7 Mr. Justice SteveNS characterizes our decision as an attempt “to create a vaguely defined exception” to the Bruton rule for eases involving interlocking confessions, post, at 82, and suggests that the “proposed exception” is designed “to limit the effect of [the Bruton] rule to the largely irrelevant set of facts in the case that announced it.” Post, at 87. First, the dissent describes what we believe to be the “rule” as the “exception.” The “rule” — indeed, the premise upon which the system of jury trials functions under the American judicial system — is that juries can be trusted to follow the trial court's instructions. Bruton was an exception to this rule, created because of the “devastating” consequences that failure of the jury to disregard a codefendant's inculpatory confession could have to a nonconfessing defendant’s case. We think it entirely reasonable to apply the general rule, and not the Bruton exception, when the defendant’s case has already been devastated by his own extrajudicial confession of guilt.

Second, under the reasoning of Bruton, its facts were anything but “irrelevant” to its holding. The Bruton Court recognized:

“[T]here 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. . . . Such a context is presented here ....” 391 U. S., at 135.

Clearly, Bruton was tied to the situation in which it arose: “where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial.” Id., at 135-136.

8 Mr. Justice SteveNS, in dissent, states that our holding “squarely overrule[s]” this Court’s decisions in Roberts v. Russell, 392 U. S. 293 (1968); Hopper v. Louisiana, 392 U. S. 658 (1968); Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223 (1973); and Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969). “In all four of these cases,” according to the dissent, “the Court found a Bruton error even though the defendants’ confessions interlocked.” Post, at 83 n. 3. We disagree.

We think that the dissent fails both to note significant factual distinctions between the present case and Roberts v. Russell, supra, and to recognize the difference in precedential value between decisions of this Court which have been fully argued and disposed of on their merits and unargued summary dispositions, a difference which we noted in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 670-671 (1974). In Roberts “[t]he facts paralleled] the facts in Bruton.” 392 U. S., at 293. Petitioner was convicted of armed robbery after a joint trial in which a codefendant's confession inculpating petitioner was introduced through the testimony of a police officer. Petitioner’s cousin testified at trial that petitioner had “indicated that he thought . . . Tennessee was an easy place to commit a robbery.” App. to Brief in Opposition, O. T. 1967, No, 920, Misc., p. 4. This extrajudicial statement, while inculpatory, was by no stretch of the imagination a “confession.” The District Court denied petitioner’s application for a writ of habeas corpus, expressly relying on the authority of Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232 (1957), and the Court of Appeals affirmed. This Court subsequently overruled Delli Paoli in Bruton, and granted the petition for certiorari in Roberts to consider “the question whether Bruton [was] to be applied retroactively.” Roberts v. Russell, supra, at 293. The Court decided the question affirmatively, vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remanded the case to the District Court for further consideration in light of Bruton, in no way passing on the merits of petitioner’s Bruton claim. Thus, Roberts, contrary to the dissent’s reading, neither involved interlocking confessions nor “found a Bruton error.”

Hopper v. Louisiana, supra, came to this Court in much the posture as Roberts. Petitioners’ manslaughter convictions were affirmed by the Louisiana Supreme Court when Delli Paoli was still good law, but while their petition for certiorari was pending before this Court, Bruton was decided. In a two-sentence summary disposition, this Court granted petitioners’ petition for certorari, vacated the judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and remanded the case “for further consideration in light of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, and Roberts v. Russell, [392 U. S.] 293.” 392 U. S., at 658. Not having passed on the merits of petitioners’ Bruton claim, this Court can hardly be said to have “found a Bruton error” in Hopper.

The dissent, we believe, likewise misreads Harrington v. Califonia, supra, and Brown v. United States, supra, as our discussion of those cases in n. 5, supra, reveals.