The impact of federal constitutional law on co-defendant cases in California
Overview This article unpacks the relationship California courts have with federal constitutional law via the Aranda/Bruton doctrine, which protects criminal defendants in joint trials against inculpative hearsay statements admitted against their codefendant under the Sixth Amendment’s confrontation clause.[1] The 2023 Supreme Court case Samia v. United States appears to constrict the federal Bruton doctrine significantly. In effect, though, it won’t. Bruton and its progeny do very little to protect criminal defendants, and lockstepping prevents California from doing any more. Rather than insulating California from rights-abrogating federal law, Proposition 8 (also called the Victim’s Bill of Rights) forces California to sway...
