Page:Samia v. United States.pdf/20

16 editing the statement to exclude mention of the “other person” may have made it seem as though Stillwell and Lee were alone in the van at the time Lee was shot. Such a scenario may have led the jurors—who sat in judgment of both Samia and Stillwell—to conclude that Stillwell was the shooter, an obviously prejudicial result.

As described above, expanding the Bruton rule in the way Samia proposes would be inconsistent with longstanding practice and our precedents. It would also work an unnecessary and imprudent change in law, resulting in precisely the practical effects that the Court rejected in Richardson. The Confrontation Clause rule that Samia proposes would require federal and state trial courts to conduct extensive pretrial hearings to determine whether the jury could infer from the Government’s case in its entirety that the defendant had been named in an altered confession. See Brief for Petitioner 16. That approach would be burdensome and “far from foolproof,” 481 U. S., at 209, and we decline to endorse it.

Indeed, it would be impractical to fully police juror inferences in the way Samia seems to suggest; in a criminal trial, all evidence that supports the prosecution’s theory of the case is, to some extent, mutually reinforcing. Thus, the likely practical consequence of Samia’s position would be to mandate severance whenever the prosecution wishes to introduce the confession of a nontestifying codefendant in a joint trial. But, as this Court has observed, that is “too high” a price to pay. Id., at 210. Joint trials have long “play[ed] a vital role in the criminal justice system,” preserving government resources and allowing victims to avoid repeatedly reliving trauma. Id., at 209; see also United States v. Marchant, 12 Wheat. 480, 482–483, 485 (1827) (Story, J.) (recognizing the crucial role of joint trials). Further, joint trials encourage consistent verdicts and enable