Page:Samia v. United States.pdf/36

2 from the premise that the introduction of Stillwell’s inculpatory confession during the joint trial threatened Samia’s Confrontation Clause rights. The introduction of a “testimonial” statement from an unavailable declarant violates the Confrontation Clause unless the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. Crawford v. Washington, 541 U. S. 36, 59, 68 (2004). And, here, there is no dispute that Stillwell’s statement to law enforcement was testimonial, that Stillwell was an unavailable declarant, and that Samia had no opportunity to cross-examine Stillwell. Therefore, the default presumption in this case should have been that Stillwell’s confession was not admissible at his and Samia’s joint trial, because the statement implicated Samia on its face, and Samia could not cross-examine the declarant.

When the Government attempted to nonetheless introduce Stillwell’s inculpatory confession notwithstanding Samia’s inability to cross-examine him, it sought an exception from the Confrontation Clause’s exclusion mandate. Before today, this Court had never held that a limiting instruction, combined with a redaction that merely replaces the defendant’s name, sufficiently “cures” the constitutional problem. In Bruton, the Court rejected the idea of an exception entirely—it entertained permitting such an exception in light of a limiting instruction given at trial, but the Court ultimately declined to adopt one. 391 U. S., at 137 (“[I]n the context of a joint trial we cannot accept limiting