Kevin D. Gray v. Maryland (523 U.S. 185)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 9, 1998 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 523 U.S. 185 · 118 S. Ct. 1151
- Decided
- March 9, 1998
- Term
- October Term 1997
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. The issue in this ease concerns the application of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968). Bruton involved two defendants accused of participating in the same crime and tried jointly before the same jury. One of the defendants had confessed. His confession named and incriminated the other defendant. The trial judge issued a limiting instruction, telling the jury that it should consider the confession as evidence only against the codefendant who had confessed and not against the defendant named in the confession. Bruton held that, despite the limiting instruction, the Constitution forbids the use of such a confession in the joint trial. The case before us differs from Bruton in that the prosecution here redacted the codefendant’s confession by substituting for the defendant’s name in the confession a blank space or the word “deleted.” We must decide whether these substitutions make a significant legal difference. We hold that they do not and that Bruton’s protective rule applies. I In 1993, Stacey Williams died after a severe beating. Anthony Bell gave a confession, to the Baltimore City police, in which he said that he (Bell), Kevin Gray, and Jacquin “Tank” Vanlandingham had participated in the beating that resulted in Williams’ death. Vanlandingham later died. A Maryland grand jury indicted Bell and Gray for murder.…
Excerpt of a 21,425-character opinion. The full text and citation network load in the interactive viewer above.