Cruz v. New York

• Decision Date: 21 April 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85-5939,85-5939
• Parties: Eulogio CRUZ, Petitioner v. NEW YORK
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

481 U.S. 186

107 S.Ct. 1714

95 L.Ed.2d 162

Eulogio CRUZ, Petitioner

v NEW YORK.

No. 85-5939.

Argued Dec. 1, 1986.

Decided April 21, 1987.

Syllabus

Under Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476, a defendant is deprived of his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment when his codefendant's incriminating confession is introduced at their joint trial, even if the jury is instructed to consider that confession only against the codefendant. At petitioner's and his brother's joint trial for the felony murder of a gas station attendant, the court allowed the State, over petitioner's objection, to introduce the brother's videotaped confession that he had killed the attendant who had just shot petitioner. The brother did not himself testify, and the court warned the jury that his confession was not to be used against petitioner. The State also called a witness who testified about a conversation with petitioner which recited essentially the same facts as the brother's confession. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed petitioner's conviction, adopting the reasoning of the plurality opinion in Parker v. Randolph, 442 U.S. 62, 99 S.Ct. 2132, 60 L.Ed.2d 713, that Bruton did not require the brother's confession to be excluded because petitioner had himself confessed and his confession "interlocked" with his brother's.

Held:

1. Where a nontestifying codefendant's confession facially incriminating the defendant is not directly admissible against the defendant, the Confrontation Clause bars its admission at their joint trial, even if the jury is instructed not to consider it against the defendant, and even if the defendant's own confession is admitted against him. The Parker plurality's view that Bruton is inapplicable to cases involving interlocking confessions is rejected in favor of Justice BLACKMUN's view in Parker that, although introduction of the defendant's own interlocking confession cannot cure the Confrontation Clause violation caused by introduction of the nontestifying codefendant's confession, it might, in some cases, render that violation harmless. The Parker plurality's view is predicated on the erroneous theory that, when the defendant has himself confessed, introduction of the codefendant's confession will seldom, if ever, be of the "devastating" character required by Bruton to prove a Confrontation Clause violation. Although Bruton did consider "devastating" effect, it did so in the context of justification for excluding the entire category of codefendant confessions that implicate the defendant, and not as a factor whose existence must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The assump- tion that an interlocking confession precludes devastation is rendered untenable by the infinite variability of inculpatory statements and their likely effect on juries. In fact, "interlocking" bears an inverse relationship to devastation, since a codefendant's confession that corroborates the defendant's alleged confession significantly harms the defendant's case, whereas one that is positively incompatible gives credence to the defendant's assertion that his own alleged confession was nonexistent or false. The "interlocking" nature of a codefendant's confession pertains not to its harmfulness but to its reliability, which, although relevant to whether the confession should be admitted as evidence against the defendant, is irrelevant to the questions whether the jury is likely to obey the instruction to disregard it or whether the jury's failure to do so is likely to be inconsequential. Pp. 189-193.

2. Although a codefendant's interlocking confession incriminating the defendant may not be admitted at trial, the defendant's own confession may be considered in assessing whether his codefendant's statements are supported by sufficient "indicia of reliability" to be directly admissible against him (assuming the codefendant's "unavailability") despite the lack of opportunity for cross-examination, and may be considered on appeal in assessing whether any Confrontation Clause violation was harmless. Pp. 193—194.

66 N.Y.2d 61, 495 N.Y.S.2d 14, 485 N.E.2d 221 (1985), reversed and remanded.

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and POWELL and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined, post, p. 194.

Robert S. Dean, New York City, for petitioner.

Peter D. Coddington, New York City, for respondent.

Robert H. Klonoff, for United States, as amicus curiae, by special leave of Court.

Justice SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.

In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), we held that a defendant is deprived of his rights under the Confrontation Clause when his codefendant's incriminating con- fession is introduced at their joint trial, even if the jury is instructed to consider that confession only against the codefendant. In Parker v. Randolph, 442 U.S. 62, 99 S.Ct. 2132, 60 L.Ed.2d 713 (1979), we considered, but were unable authoritatively to resolve, the question whether Bruton applies where the defendant's own confession, corroborating that of his codefendant, is introduced against him. We resolve that question today.

I

Jerry Cruz was murdered on March 15, 1982. That is not the murder for which petitioner was tried and convicted, but the investigation of the one led to the solving of the other. On the day following Jerry Cruz's murder, and on several later occasions, the police talked to Jerry's brother Norberto about the killing. On April 27, Norberto for the first time informed the police of a November 29, 1981, visit by petitioner Eulogio Cruz and his brother Benjamin to the apartment Norberto shared with Jerry. (Eulogio and Benjamin Cruz were long time friends of Norberto and Jerry Cruz, but the two sets of brothers were not related.) Norberto said that at the time of the visit Eulogio was nervous and was wearing a blood stained bandage around his arm. According to Norberto, Eulogio confided that he and Benjamin had gone to a Bronx gas station the night before, intending to rob it; that Eulogio and the attendant had struggled; and that, after the attendant had grabbed a gun from behind a counter and shot Eulogio in the arm, Benjamin had killed him. Norberto claimed that Benjamin gave a similar account of the incident.

On May 3, 1982, the police questioned Benjamin about the murder of Jerry Cruz. He strongly denied any connection with that homicide and became frustrated when the police seemed unwilling to believe him. Suddenly, to prove that he would tell the truth about killing someone if he were guilty, Benjamin spontaneously confessed to the murder of the gas station attendant. Later that evening, he gave a detailed videotaped confession to an Assistant District Attorney, in which he admitted that he, Eulogio, Jerry Cruz, and a fourth man had robbed the gas station, and that he had killed the attendant after the attendant shot Eulogio. Benjamin and Eulogio were indicted for felony murder of the station attendant.

The brothers were tried jointly, over Eulogio's objection. Likewise over Eulogio's objection, the trial judge allowed the prosecutor to introduce Benjamin's videotaped confession, warning the jury that the confession was not to be used against Eulogio. The government also called Norberto, who testified about his November 29 conversation with Eulogio and Benjamin. Finally, the government introduced police testimony, forensic evidence, and photographs of the scene of the murder, all of which corroborated Benjamin's videotaped confession and the statements recounted by Norberto. At the trial's end, however, Norberto's testimony stood as the only evidence admissible against Eulogio that directly linked him to the crime. Eulogio's attorney tried to persuade the jury that Norberto had suspected Eulogio and Benjamin of killing his brother Jerry and had fabricated his testimony to gain revenge. Unconvinced, the jury convicted both defendants.

The New York Court of Appeals affirmed Eulogio's conviction, 66 N.Y.2d 61, 495 N.Y.S.2d 14, 485 N.E.2d 221 (1985), adopting the reasoning of the plurality opinion in Parker that Bruton did not require the codefendant's confession to be excluded because Eulogio had himself confessed and his confession "interlocked" with Benjamin's. We granted certiorari. 476 U.S. 1168, 106 S.Ct. 2888, 90 L.Ed.2d 976 (1986).

II

The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of a criminal defendant "to be confronted with the witnesses against him." We have held that that guarantee, extended against the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, includes the right to cross-examine witnesses. See Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 404, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 1068, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965). Where two or more defendants are tried jointly, therefore, the pretrial confession of one of them that implicates the others is not admissible against the others unless the confessing defendant waives his Fifth Amendment rights so as to permit cross-examination.

Ordinarily, a witness is considered to be a witness "against" a defendant for purposes of the Confrontation Clause only if his testimony is part of the body of evidence that the jury may consider in assessing his guilt. Therefore, a witness whose testimony is introduced in a joint trial with the limiting instruction that it be used only to assess the guilt of one of the defendants will not be considered to be a witness "against" the other defendants. In Bruton, however, we held that this principle will not be applied to validate, under the Confrontation Clause, introduction of a nontestifying codefendant's confession implicating the defendant, with instructions that the jury should disregard the confession insofar as its consideration of the defendant's guilt is concerned. We said:

"[T]here are some contexts in which the risk that the jury...