## Facts

- George William Bruton and William James Evans were jointly tried in federal court for armed postal robbery involving a jewelry store operating as a contract postal station.
- Evans did not testify.
- A postal inspector testified that Evans orally confessed that Evans and Bruton committed the robbery.
- The trial court admitted the confession only against Evans and instructed the jury that it was inadmissible hearsay as to Bruton and must not be considered against him.
- The jury convicted both defendants.
- The court of appeals reversed Evans’s conviction based on improper admission of the confession against him but affirmed Bruton’s conviction, reasoning the limiting instruction cured any prejudice.

## Issues

1. Whether admitting a non-testifying co-defendant’s confession that directly implicates the defendant at a joint trial, coupled with a limiting instruction, violates the defendant’s Sixth Amendment Confrontation Clause right.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed Bruton's conviction.
- The Court held that admitting Evans’s confession at the joint trial violated Bruton's Confrontation Clause right because Bruton could not cross-examine Evans.
- The Court concluded there was a substantial risk that the jury used the confession against Bruton despite the limiting instruction.
- The Court overruled Delli Paoli v. United States.

## Legal Principles

- The Confrontation Clause is violated when a non-testifying co-defendant’s extrajudicial confession that is facially incriminating as to the defendant is introduced at their joint trial, even with instructions limiting its use to the confessor.
- Limiting instructions may be constitutionally insufficient where the confession is powerfully incriminating and the co-defendant is unavailable for cross-examination.
- Accomplice confessions implicating another defendant are particularly suspect in reliability when the declarant does not testify and cannot be tested through cross-examination.

## Conclusion

Bruton held that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation is denied when a non-testifying co-defendant’s confession directly incriminating the defendant is admitted at a joint trial, because limiting instructions cannot reliably prevent jurors from using the confession against the non-confessing defendant.


Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968)