Also known as: joint defendants · joint-defendant · codefendant · co-defendant
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A defendant joined with one or more others as a party in the same civil action or criminal prosecution. The joinder subjects each to the same proceeding and permits claims or evidence involving multiple parties to be resolved together.
Jeanette Jensen and Jessica Jacobs were indicted together on fraud charges. Police arranged for an informant to record their jailhouse discussion about the scheme. The recording captured incriminating statements from both. The court suppressed the statements obtained from the joint defendant because the deliberate elicitation violated the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
Jada Jones sued Jones Petroleum and Jarvis Aviation in state court for breach of contract. Jones Petroleum removed the case to federal court on diversity grounds. Jarvis Aviation never consented to removal. The court remanded because all properly joined and served joint defendants must join or consent to removal.
Judy Jacobs and Jeffrey Jha were tried jointly for robbery. The prosecution introduced a confession by Jha that named Jacobs as the getaway driver. Jha did not testify. The court held the admission violated Jacobs's confrontation rights even with a limiting instruction because the joint defendant had no opportunity for cross-examination.
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. The interrogations followed an April 8 confession Evans gave to local police officers without warnings while held on state charges. 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. 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. The Supreme Court granted certiorari. The trial had begun one week after Miranda v. Arizona, and the Court of Appeals applied that decision to hold the confessions tainted. On retrial Evans was acquitted. 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.
View caseJacob Jennings and Jeanette Jensen were stopped in a borrowed car. Officers found contraband during a search. Jennings moved to suppress the evidence. The court denied the motion because a joint defendant who was merely a passenger lacked a legitimate expectation of privacy in the vehicle.
Petitioners were convicted of armed robbery in the Circuit Court of Kankakee County, Illinois, after a trial in which the prosecution introduced a sawed-off rifle and rifle shells seized by police from an automobile in which the petitioners had been passengers. Neither petitioner owned the automobile, and neither asserted ownership of the rifle or the shells. The Illinois Appellate Court affirmed the convictions after upholding the denial of a motion to suppress, and the Illinois Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. The events began when a police officer on routine patrol received a radio call reporting a robbery of a clothing store in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and describing the getaway car. The officer spotted a vehicle he believed matched the description, followed it until backup arrived, and then stopped the car. The occupants, consisting of the petitioners and two female companions with the owner driving, were ordered out of the vehicle. After the occupants exited, officers searched the interior of the car and discovered a box of rifle shells inside the locked glove compartment along with a sawed-off rifle beneath the front passenger seat. The officers then took the petitioners to the station and placed them under arrest. Before trial the petitioners moved to suppress the rifle and shells, conceding they did not own the automobile and were merely passengers while also declining to claim ownership of the seized items. The prosecutor challenged the petitioners' standing to object to the search on the ground that neither the car nor the evidence belonged to them. The trial court agreed and denied the motion to suppress without reaching the question of probable cause. The Supreme Court of the United States granted certiorari to address the standing issue because of its importance to the administration of criminal justice.
View caseJessica Jacobs and Jada Jones faced bank robbery charges. Jacobs accepted a plea deal that required her to testify against Jones. The court accepted the plea after confirming it was voluntary. The joint defendant's agreement did not automatically bind Jones or require her consent.
In 1959, petitioner Brady was charged with kidnapping in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a). The indictment charged that the victim of the kidnapping was not liberated unharmed, so Brady faced a maximum penalty of death if the jury recommended it. Represented by competent counsel throughout, Brady first elected to plead not guilty. He made no serious attempt to reduce the possibility of a death penalty by waiving a jury trial because the trial judge was unwilling to try the case without a jury. Upon learning that his codefendant, who had confessed to the authorities, would plead guilty and be available to testify against him, Brady changed his plea to guilty. The trial judge twice questioned Brady as to the voluntariness of his plea before accepting it. Brady was sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment, later reduced to thirty years. In 1967, Brady sought relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, claiming that his plea of guilty was not voluntarily given because the statute operated to coerce his plea, because his counsel exerted impermissible pressure upon him, and because his plea was induced by representations with respect to reduction of sentence and clemency. He also alleged that the trial judge had not fully complied with Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. After a hearing, the District Court for the District of New Mexico denied relief. The District Court found that Brady's counsel did not put impermissible pressure on him to plead guilty and that no representations were made with respect to a reduced sentence or clemency. The court determined that Brady decided to plead guilty when he learned that his codefendant was going to plead guilty. The court concluded that the plea was voluntarily and knowingly made. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed, determining that the District Court's findings were supported by substantial evidence and specifically approving the finding that Brady's plea of guilty was voluntary. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the claim that the Court of Appeals was in error in not reaching a contrary result on the authority of United States v. Jackson.
View caseJudy Jacobs and Jeffrey Jha were convicted after a joint trial that included an improper comment on Jacobs's silence. The appellate court applied harmless-error analysis to the constitutional violation. It concluded the error did not affect the verdict against the joint defendant because overwhelming independent evidence supported the conviction.
Ruth Elizabeth Chapman and Thomas LeRoy Teale were convicted in a California state court upon a charge that they robbed, kidnaped, and murdered a bartender. Chapman was sentenced to life imprisonment and Teale to death. At trial both petitioners chose not to testify. The prosecutor took full advantage of a provision in the California Constitution allowing comment on a defendant's failure to testify, filling his argument to the jury from beginning to end with numerous references to their silence and inferences of guilt. The trial court also charged the jury that it could draw adverse inferences from petitioners' failure to testify. The trial took place before this Court decided Griffin v. California. On appeal the California Supreme Court acknowledged that petitioners had been denied a federal constitutional right by the comments on their silence but affirmed applying the State's harmless-error provision. The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to these questions: where there is a violation of the rule of Griffin v. California, can the error be held to be harmless, and if so, was the error harmless in this case.
View caseYes. Each joint defendant retains a separate Sixth Amendment right to counsel once indicted. Police may not deliberately elicit incriminating statements from one through the other without counsel present.
Supporting sources
Admission violates the Confrontation Clause in a joint trial if the non-testifying co-defendant's confession directly implicates the defendant, even with a limiting instruction. Redactions that obviously point to the defendant are also insufficient.
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Yes. The rule of unanimity requires every properly joined and served defendant to join in or consent to removal. Failure by any joint defendant renders the removal procedurally defective and subject to remand.
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…Sylvia's statement did not fall under a firmly rooted hearsay exception, it bore guarantees of trustworthiness: " [W]hen a codefendant's confession is virtually identical [to, i. e. , interlocks with,] that of a defendant, it may be deemed reliable.'" 147 Wash. 2d 424, 437, 54 P. 3d 656, 663 (2002) (quoting State v.…