Nelson v. Neil

Decision Date01 June 1971
Docket NumberNo. 336,336
PartiesLouis S. NELSON, Warden, Petitioner, v. Joe J. B. O'NEIL
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus

Respondent and one Runnels were charged with committing various crimes and at their joint trial offered an alibi defense. A police officer testified that Runnels had orally admitted the crimes and implicated respondent. Runnels, who took the stand, denied making the statement. The trial judge ruled that Runnels' alleged statement was inadmissible hearsay as to respondent and could not be considered by the jury in deciding whether respondent was guilty. Respondent also took the stand on his own behalf and gave the same version of their activities as Runnels. Both defendants were found guilty, and after unsuccessful efforts to have his conviction set aside, respondent applied for habeas corpus relief. The District Court ruled that respondent's conviction was improper under Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476, and Roberts v. Russell, 392 U.S. 293, 88 S.Ct. 1921, 20 L.Ed.2d 1100, which held that the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth is violated where a codefendant's out-of-court hearsay statement is admitted into evidence without the declarant's being available at trial for 'full and effective' cross-examination by the defendant, and that a cautionary instruction to the jury does not adequately protect the defendant where the codefendant does not testify. The Court of Appeals affirmed, stressing that effective confrontation of a witness who has allegedly made an out-of-court statement implicating the defendant was possible only if the witness affirmed the statement as his. Held: Where a codefendant takes the stand in his own defense, denies making an alleged out-of-court statement implicating the defendant, and testifies in the defendant's favor, the defendant has been denied no rights protected by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and in the circumstances of this case respondent, who would have encountered greater difficulty had Runnels affirmed the statement as his, was denied neither the opportunity nor the benefit of fully and effectively cross-examining Runnels. Bruton, supra, distinguished. Pp. 626 630.

422 F.2d 319, reversed and remanded.

Charles R.B. Kirk, San Francisco, Cal., for petitioner.

J. Strouse Campbell, Arlington, Va., for respondent.

Mr. Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

The respondent, Joe O'Neil, was arrested along with a man named Runnels when the police of Culver City, California, answered a midnight call from a liquor store reporting that two men in a white Cadillac were suspiciously cruising about in the neighborhood. The police responded to the call, spotted the Cadillac, and followed it into an alley where a gun was thrown from one of its windows. They then stopped the car and apprehended the respondent and Runnels. Further investigation revealed that the car had been stolen about 10:30 that night in Los Angeles by two men who had forced its owner at gunpoint to drive them a distance of a few blocks and then had robbed him of $8 and driven off. The victim subsequently picked Runnels and the respondent from a lineup, positively identifying them as the men who had kidnaped and robbed him.

Arraigned on charges of kidnaping, robbery, and vehicle theft, both the respondent and Runnels pleaded not guilty, and at their joint trial they offered an alibi defense. Each told the same story: they had spent the evening at the respondent's home until about 11 p.m., when they had left together. While waiting at a bus stop they were picked up by a friend driving a white cadillac, and he offered to lend them the car for a few hours while he went into a nightclub. They accepted the offer, and once on their way discovered that there was a gun in the glove compartment. They entered an alley in search of a place to dispose of the gun, since they were afraid of being stopped with it in the car. Soon after throwing the gun out of the window they were stopped by the police and arrested. The supposed friend was not called as a witness and was not shown to be unavailable, but other witnesses corroborated parts of their alibi testimony.

The owner of the white Cadillac made a positive in-court identification of the defendants, and a police officer testified to the facts of the arrest. Another police officer testified that after the arrest Runnels had made an unsworn oral statement admitting the crimes and implicating the respondent as his confederate. The trial judge ruled the officer's testimony as to the substance of the alleged statement admissible against Runnels, but instructed the jury that it could not consider it against the respondent. When Runnels took the stand in his own defense, he was asked on direct examination whether he had made the statement, and he flatly denied having done so. He also vigorously asserted that the substance of the statement imputed to him was false. He was then intensively cross-examined by the prosecutor, but stuck to his story in every particular. The respondent's counsel did not cross-examine Runnels, although he was, of course, fully free to do so. The respondent took the stand on his own behalf and told a story identical to that of Runnels as to the activities of the two on the night in question. Both the prosecutor and Runnels' counsel discussed the alleged confession in their closing arguments to the jury, and the trial judge repeated his instruction that it could be considered only against Runnels.

The jury found both defendants guilty as charged. After unsuccessful efforts to set aside the conviction in the California courts, the respondent applied for federal habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and while the case was pending there this Court decided Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476, and Roberts v. Russell, 392 U.S. 293, 88 S.Ct. 1921, 20 L.Ed.2d 1100, holding that under certain circumstances the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment,1 applicable to the States through the Fourteenth,2 is violated when a codefendant's confession implicating the defendant is placed before the jury at their joint trial.3 The District Court ruled that the respondent's conviction had to be set aside under Bruton and Roberts, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 422 F.2d 319 (1970). Petitioner then sought a writ of certiorari in this Court, contending, first, that there was no constitutional error under Bruton and Roberts, second, that any error there might have been was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under the doctrine of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705, and, third, that the District Court should have required the respondent first to seek redress in the state courts, which had had no opportunity to consider the Bruton claim. We granted certiorari to consider these issues. 400 U.S. 901, 91 S.Ct. 136, 27 L.Ed.2d 137. Since we agree with the petitioner that there was no violation of the Constitution in this case, it is unnecessary to consider the other questions presented.

Runnels' out-of-court confession implicating the respondent was hearsay as to the latter, and therefore inadmissible against him under state evidence law. The trial judge so ruled, and instructed the jury that it must not consider any part of the statement in deciding whether or not the respondent was guilty. In Bruton, however, we held that, quite apart from the law of evidence, such a cautionary instruction to the jury is not an adequate protection for the defendant where the codefendant does not take the witness stand. We held that where the jury hears the codefendant's confession implicating the defendant, the codefendant becomes in substance, if not in form, a 'witness' against the defendant. The defendant must constitutionally have an opportunity to 'confront' such a witness. This the defendant cannot do if the codefendant refuses to take the stand.

It was clear in Bruton that the 'confrontation' guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments is confrontation at trial—that is, that the absence of the defendant at the time the codefendant allegedly made the out-of-court statement is immaterial, so long as the declarant can be cross-examined on the witness stand at trial. This was confirmed in California v. Green, 399 U.S. 149, 90 S.Ct. 1930, 26 L.Ed.2d 489, where we said that '(v)iewed historically * * * there is good reason to conclude that the Confrontation Clause is not violated by admitting a declarant's out-of-court statements, as long as the declarant is testifying as a witness and subject to full and effective cross-examination.' Id., at 158, 90 S.Ct., at 1935. Moreover, 'where the declarant is not absent, but is present to testify and to submit to cross-examination, our cases, if anything, support the con- clusion that the admission of his out-of-court statements does not create a confrontation problem.' Id., at 162, 90 S.Ct., at 1937. This is true, of course, even though the declarant's out-of-court statement is hearsay as to the defendant, so that its admission against him, in the absence of a cautionary instruction, would be reversible error under state law. The Constitution as construed in Bruton, in other words, is violated only where the out-of-court hearsay statement is that of a declarant who is unavailable at the trial for 'full and effective' cross-examination.

The question presented by this case, then, is whether cross-examination can be full and effective where the declarant is present at the trial, takes the witness stand, testifies fully as to his activities during the period described in his alleged out-of-court statement, but denies that he made the statement and claims that its substance is false.

In affirming the District Court, the Court of...

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