Petitioner, who is white, and three Negro codefendants (Bosby,
Rhone, and Cooper) were tried for first-degree murder. Petitioner's
statements placed him at the scene of the crime. He admitted that
Bosby was the trigger man; that he fled with the other three, and
that, after the murder, he dyed his hair and shaved off his
moustache. Eyewitnesses placed petitioner at the scene of the
crime, but some had previously said that four Negroes committed the
crime. The three codefendants confessed, and their confessions were
introduced at trial. Rhone's confession placed petitioner inside
the store with a gun at the time of the crime. Rhone took the stand
and petitioner's counsel cross-examined him. Bosby and Cooper did
not take the stand, and in their confessions, which mentioned
petitioner (not by name, but as "the white guy" or by similar
terms), said that they did not see "the white guy" with a gun. All
four codefendants were found guilty of first-degree murder, the
California Court of Appeal affirmed, and the State Supreme Court
denied a petition for a hearing.
Held: Apart from the cumulative nature of the
confessions of the two codefendants who did not take the stand, the
evidence against petitioner consisting of direct testimony, as
opposed to circumstantial evidence, was so overwhelming that the
violation of
Bruton v. United States, 391 U.
S. 123 (which held that the admission of a confession of
a codefendant who did not take the stand deprived the defendant of
his rights under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause), was
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Chapman v. California,
386 U. S. 18. Pp.
395 U. S.
251-254.
256 Cal. App.
2d 209, 64 Cal. Rptr. 159, affirmed.
Page 395 U. S. 251
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
We held in
Chapman v. California, 386 U. S.
18, that
"before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the
court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond
a reasonable doubt."
Id. at
386 U. S. 24. We
said that, although "there are some constitutional rights so basic
to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as
harmless error" (
id. at
386 U. S. 23),
not all
Page 395 U. S. 252
"trial errors which violate the Constitution automatically call
for reversal."
Ibid.
The question whether the alleged error in the present case was
"harmless" under the rule of
Chapman arose in a state
trial for attempted robbery and first-degree murder. Four men were
tried together -- Harrington, a Caucasian, and Bosby, Rhone, and
Cooper, Negroes -- over an objection by Harrington that his trial
should be severed. Each of his three codefendants confessed and
their confessions were introduced at the trial with limiting
instructions that the jury was to consider each confession only
against the confessor. Rhone took the stand, and Harrington's
counsel cross-examined him. The other two did not take the stand.
[
Footnote 1]
In
Bruton v. United States, 391 U.
S. 123, a confession of a codefendant who did not take
the stand was used against Bruton in a federal prosecution. We held
that Bruton had been denied his rights under the Confrontation
Clause of the Sixth Amendment. Since the Confrontation Clause is
applicable as well in state trials by reason of the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (
Pointer v. Texas,
380 U. S. 400),
the rule of
Bruton applies here.
The California Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions,
256 Cal. App.
2d 209, 64 Cal. Rptr. 159, and the Supreme Court denied a
petition for a hearing. We granted the petition for certiorari to
consider whether the violation of
Bruton was, on these
special facts, harmless error under
Chapman.
Petitioner made statements which fell short of a confession but
which placed him at the scene of the crime. He admitted that Bosby
was the trigger man;
Page 395 U. S. 253
that he fled with the other three, and that, after the murder,
he dyed his hair black and shaved off his moustache. Several
eyewitnesses placed petitioner at the scene of the crime. But two
of them had previously told the police that four Negroes committed
the crime. Rhone's confession, however, placed Harrington inside
the store with a gun at the time of the attempted robbery and
murder.
Cooper's confession did not refer to Harrington by name. He
referred to the fourth man as "the white boy" or "this white guy."
And he described him by age, height, and weight.
Bosby's confession likewise did not mention Harrington by name,
but referred to him as a blond-headed fellow or "the white guy" or
"the Patty."
Both Cooper and Bosby said in their confessions that they did
not see "the white guy" with a gun, which is at variance with the
testimony of the prosecution witnesses.
Petitioner argues that it is irrelevant that he was not named in
Cooper's and Bosby's confessions, that reference to "the white guy"
made it as clear as pointing and shouting that the person referred
to was the white man in the dock with the three Negroes. We make
the same assumption. But we conclude that, on these special facts,
the lack of opportunity to cross-examine Cooper and Bosby
constituted harmless error under the rule of
Chapman.
Rhone, whom Harrington's counsel cross-examined, placed him in
the store with a gun at the time of the murder. Harrington himself
agreed he was there. Others testified he had a gun and was an
active participant. Cooper and Bosby did not put a gun in his hands
when he denied it. [
Footnote 2]
They did place him at the scene of
Page 395 U. S. 254
the crime. But others, including Harrington himself, did the
same. Their evidence, supplied through their confessions, was of
course cumulative. But, apart from them, the case against
Harrington was so overwhelming that we conclude that this violation
of
Bruton was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt unless we
adopt the minority view in
Chapman (386 U.S. at
386 U. S. 425)
that a departure from constitutional procedures should result in an
automatic reversal regardless of the weight of the evidence.
It is argued that we must reverse if we can imagine a single
juror whose mind might have been made up because of Cooper's and
Bosby's confessions and who otherwise would have remained in doubt
and unconvinced. We of course do not know the jurors who sat. Our
judgment must be based on our own reading of the record and on what
seems to us to have been the probable impact of the two confessions
on the minds of an average jury. We admonished in
Chapman,
386 U.S. at
386 U. S. 23,
against giving too much emphasis to "overwhelming evidence" of
guilt, stating that constitutional errors affecting the substantial
rights of the aggrieved party could not be considered to be
harmless. By that test, we cannot impute reversible weight to the
two confessions.
We do not depart from
Chapman; nor do we dilute it by
inference. We reaffirm it. We do not suggest that, if evidence
bearing on all the ingredients of the crime is tendered, the use of
cumulative evidence, though tainted, is harmless error. Our
decision is based on the evidence in this record. The case against
Harrington was not woven from circumstantial evidence. It is so
overwhelming that, unless we say that no violation of
Bruton can constitute harmless error, we must leave this
state conviction undisturbed.
Affirmed.
Page 395 U. S. 255
[
Footnote 1]
All four were found to have participated in an attempted robbery
in the course of which a store employee was killed. Each was found
guilty of felony murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
[
Footnote 2]
"All persons aiding and abetting the commission of a robbery are
guilty of first degree murder when one of them kills while acting
in furtherance of the common design."
People v. Washington, 62 Cal. 2d
777, 782, 402 P.2d 130, 133.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE
MARSHALL join, dissenting.
The Court today overrules
Chapman v. California,
386 U. S. 18
(1967), the very case it purports to apply. Far more fundamentally,
it severely undermines many of the Court's most significant
decisions in the area of criminal procedure.
In
Chapman, we recognized that "harmless error rules
can work very unfair and mischievous results" unless they are
narrowly circumscribed.
Id. at
386 U. S. 22. We
emphasized that
"[a]n error in admitting plainly relevant evidence which
possibly influenced the jury adversely to a litigant cannot . . .
be conceived of as harmless."
Id. at
386 U. S. 23-24.
Thus, placing the burden of proof on the beneficiary of the error,
we held that,
"before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the
court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond
a reasonable doubt."
Id. at
386 U. S. 24.
And we left no doubt that, for an error to be "harmless," it must
have made no contribution to a criminal conviction.
Id. at
386 U. S.
26.
Chapman, then, meant no compromise with the proposition
that a conviction cannot constitutionally be based to any extent on
constitutional error. The Court today, by shifting the inquiry from
whether the constitutional error contributed to the conviction to
whether the untainted evidence provided "overwhelming" support for
the conviction, puts aside the firm resolve of
Chapman and
makes that compromise. As a result, the deterrent effect of such
cases as
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643
(1961);
Griffin v. California, 380 U.
S. 609 (1965);
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.
S. 436 (1966);
United States v. Wade,
388 U. S. 218
(1967), and
Bruton v. United States, 391 U.
S. 123 (1968), on the actions of both police and
prosecutors, not to speak of trial courts, will be significantly
undermined.
Page 395 U. S. 256
The Court holds that constitutional error in the trial of a
criminal offense may be held harmless if there is "overwhelming"
untainted evidence to support the conviction. This approach,
however, was expressly rejected in
Chapman, supra, at
386 U. S. 23,
and with good reason. For, where the inquiry concerns the extent of
accumulation of untainted evidence, rather than the impact of
tainted evidence, on the jury's decision, convictions resulting
from constitutional error may be insulated from attack. By its
nature, the issue of substantiality of evidence admits of only the
most limited kind of appellate review. Thus, the Court's rule will
often effectively leave the vindication of constitutional rights
solely in the hands of trial judges. If, instead, the task of
appellate courts is to appraise the impact of tainted evidence on a
jury's decision, as
Chapman required, these courts will be
better able to protect against deprivations of constitutional
rights of criminal defendants. The focus of appellate inquiry
should be on the character and quality of the tainted evidence as
it relates to the untainted evidence, and not just on the amount of
untainted evidence.
The instant case illustrates well the difference in application
between the approach adopted by the Court today and the approach
set down in
Chapman. At issue is the evidence going to
Harrington's participation in the crime of attempted robbery, not
the evidence going to his presence at the scene of the crime.
Without the admittedly unconstitutional evidence against Harrington
provided by the confessions of codefendants Bosby and Cooper, the
prosecutor's proof of Harrington's participation in the crime
consisted of the testimony of two victims of the attempted robbery
and of codefendant Rhone. The testimony of the victims was weakened
by the fact that they had earlier told the police that all the
participants in the attempted robbery were Negroes. Rhone's
testimony against Harrington was
Page 395 U. S. 257
self-serving in certain aspects. At the time of his arrest,
Rhone was found in possession of a gun. On the stand, he explained
that he was given the gun by Harrington after the attempted
robbery, and that Harrington had carried the gun during the
commission of the robbery. Thus, although there was more than ample
evidence to establish Harrington's participation in the attempted
robbery, a jury might still have concluded that the case was not
proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The confessions of the other two
codefendants implicating Harrington in the crime were less
self-serving, and might well have tipped the balance in the jurors'
minds in favor of conviction. Certainly, the State has not carried
its burden of demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that these
two confessions did not contribute to Harrington's conviction.
There should be no need to remind this Court that the appellate
role in applying standards of sufficiency or substantiality of
evidence is extremely limited. To apply such standards as threshold
requirements to the raising of constitutional challenges to
criminal convictions is to shield from attack errors of a most
fundamental nature, and thus to deprive many defendants of basic
constitutional rights. I respectfully dissent.