128
Opinion of Stevens, J.
that Evans had orally confessed that he and Bruton had committed the crime. The jury was instructed that Evans' confession was admissible against him, but could not be considered in assessing Bruton's guilt. Despite that instruction, this Court concluded that the introduction of Evans' confession posed such a serious threat to Bruton's right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him that he was entitled to a new trial. The case is relevant to the issue before us today, not because of its principal holding concerning the ability or inability of the jury to follow the judge's instruction, but rather because it was common ground among all of the Justices that the fact that the confession was a statement against the penal interest of Evans did not justify its use against Bruton. As Justice White noted at the outset of his dissent, "nothing in that confession which was relevant and material to Bruton's case was admissible against Bruton." Id., at 138.
In the years since Bruton was decided, we have reviewed a number of cases in which one defendant's confession has been introduced into evidence in a joint trial pursuant to instructions that it could be used against him but not against his codefendant. Despite frequent disagreement over matters such as the adequacy of the trial judge's instructions, or the sufficiency of the redaction of ambiguous references to the declarant's accomplice, we have consistently either stated or assumed that the mere fact that one accomplice's confession qualified as a statement against his penal interest did not justify its use as evidence against another person. See Gray v. Maryland, 523 U. S. 185, 194-195 (1998) (stating that because the use of an accomplice's confession "creates a special, and vital, need for cross-examination," a prosecutor desiring to offer such evidence must comply with Bruton, hold separate trials, use separate juries, or abandon the use of the confession); 523 U. S., at 200 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (stating that codefendant's confessions "may not be considered for the purpose of determining [the defendant's] guilt"); Richardson
Page: Index Previous 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007