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Rh Jacquin Vanlandingham in a murder. 523 U. S., at 188. The prosecution sought to introduce the confession at trial, and the trial judge required that it be redacted to use the word “deleted” or “deletion” whenever Gray’s or Vanlandingham’s names appeared. Ibid. At trial, the prosecution had a police detective read the confession aloud to the jury verbatim, substituting the words “deleted” or “deletion” for Gray’s or Vanlandingham’s names. Ibid. “Immediately after” the detective finished reading the confession, “the prosecutor asked, ‘after he gave you that information, you subsequently were able to arrest Mr. Kevin Gray; is that correct?’ The officer responded, ‘That’s correct.’ ” Id., at 188–189. In instructing the jury at the close of trial, the judge specified that Bell’s confession was evidence only against Bell, admonishing the jury not to use the confession as evidence against Gray. Id., at 189. The jury convicted Bell and Gray.

This Court held that the confession was inadmissible under Bruton. It first noted that, “unlike Richardson’s redacted confession, [Bell’s] confession refer[red] directly to the ‘existence’ of the nonconfessing defendant.” 523 U. S., at 192. The Court then concluded that, when a redacted confession “simply replace[s] a name with an obvious blank space or a word such as ‘deleted’ or a symbol or other similarly obvious indications of alteration,” the evidence “so closely resemble[s] Bruton’s unredacted statements that … the law must require the same result.” Ibid. The Court reasoned that such “obvious blank[s]” would cause the jurors to speculate as to whom the omitted individual may be, “lift[ing their] eyes to [the nonconfessing defendant], sitting at counsel table, to find what will seem the obvious answer,” as the judge’s “instruction will provide an obvious reason