391 U.S. 123 (1968)
In June 1966, petitioner George William Bruton and codefendant Evans were jointly tried before a jury in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. They faced a federal charge of armed postal robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2114.
A postal inspector testified that during two interrogations at the St. Louis city jail on April 11 and May 4, 1966, Evans orally confessed that he and Bruton had committed the robbery and that Evans had an accomplice whom he would not name.1 The interrogations followed an April 8 confession Evans gave to local police officers without warnings while held on state charges.2
Both defendants appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. That court set aside Evans’ conviction on the ground that his oral confessions should not have been received in evidence against him.3 However, the court affirmed Bruton’s conviction because the trial judge had instructed the jury that Evans’ confession was competent evidence only against Evans and inadmissible hearsay against Bruton.4
The Supreme Court granted certiorari.5 The trial had begun one week after Miranda v. Arizona, and the Court of Appeals applied that decision to hold the confessions tainted.6 On retrial Evans was acquitted.7 The Solicitor General later submitted a memorandum stating that in light of the record the judgment as to Bruton should be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.8
Whether the conviction of a defendant at a joint trial should be set aside although the jury was instructed that a codefendant’s confession inculpating the defendant had to be disregarded in determining his guilt or innocence?9
The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment guarantees a defendant the right to cross-examine witnesses against him.10 This right is violated by the admission in a joint trial of a codefendant’s incriminating confession even when the jury is instructed to disregard the confession in determining the defendant’s guilt or innocence.11 The risk that the jury will not or cannot follow the instruction is too great.
Yes. Evans’ oral confession directly implicated Bruton in the armed postal robbery and was placed before the jury through the postal inspector’s testimony as legitimate evidence against Evans.12 Evans did not testify so Bruton had no opportunity to cross-examine him.13 The trial judge gave a limiting instruction that the confession was inadmissible hearsay against Bruton.14
Yet the substantial risk that the jury would still consider the powerfully incriminating statements in assessing Bruton’s guilt renders the instruction an inadequate substitute for the constitutional right of cross-examination secured by the Confrontation Clause.15
The conviction must be set aside because admission of Evans’ confession in the joint trial violated Bruton’s right of cross-examination under the Confrontation Clause.16
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Stewart joined the opinion and judgment of the Court.17 Quite apart from Jackson v. Denno, the underlying rationale of the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause precludes reliance upon cautionary instructions when the highly damaging out-of-court statement of a codefendant who is not subject to cross-examination is deliberately placed before the jury at a joint trial.18 Such hearsay is at once so damaging, so suspect, and yet so difficult to discount that jurors cannot be trusted to give it the minimal weight it logically deserves, whatever instructions the trial judge might give.19
Joined by Justice Harlan
Justice White dissented.20 He argued that a codefendant’s confession is different from the defendant’s own confession because it is hearsay subject to all the dangers of inaccuracy which characterize hearsay generally.21 The codefendant’s confession is intrinsically much less reliable due to the codefendant’s motivation to shift blame.22
Juries can reasonably be expected to disregard the portions implicating the defendant when instructed to do so.23 Therefore the limiting instruction should be deemed sufficient without overruling Delli Paoli.24