Bryan Lamar Brown v. United States
SocialSecurity Securities Immigration
Does a statement facially incriminate a person for purposes of Bruton Confrontation Clause analysis when one defendant says that as a group they took the other defendant's truck to commit a crime?
QUESTIONS PRESENTED A suspect in a burglary and homicide called a detective to cooperate. The detective asked him which vehicle he and the others had taken to commit the crimes and he replied that “they took [Petitioner’s] truck.” The detective was permitted to testify to the suspect’s statement at his joint jury trial with Petitioner over Petitioner’s objection that it violated his Bruton Confrontation Clause rights. The court only gave a limiting instruction. The Fourth Circuit held the statement did not violate Bruton because it did not facially incriminate him. It also held, in a total of one paragraph, that it was harmless error anyway because other evidence supported his conviction. It made no attempt to determine whether the jury would have found Petitioner guilty in the absence of the statement. The questions presented are: 1. Does a statement facially incriminate a person for purposes of Bruton Confrontation Clause analysis when one defendant says that as a group they took the other defendant’s truck to commit a crime? 2. Does a_ harmless error analysis comport with this Court’s precedent regarding how to apply harmless error review to a constitutional violation? i