source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Mr. Justice Marshall Mr. Justice Blackmun,

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text:
    INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF ELECTRICAL WORKERS et al. v. FOUST
    No. 78-38.
    Argued February 26, 1979
    Decided May 29, 1979

      Marshall, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Brennan, Stewart, White, and Powell, JJ., joined. BlackmuN, J., filed an opinion concurring in the result, in which Burger, C. J., and Rehnquist and Stevens, JJ., joined, post, p. 52.

      Laurence J. Cohen argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were William J. Hickey, Laurence Gold, and George Kaufmann.

      Terry W. Mackey argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.
   Mr. Justice Marshall

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This action arises from the failure of petitioner union properly to process respondent’s grievance alleging wrongful discharge by his employer. The question presented is whether the Railway Labor Act permits an employee to recover punitive damages for such a breach of a union’s duty of fair representation.

I

Respondent, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), was injured in March 1970 while working for the Union Pacific Railroad Co. (Union Pacific). He received a medical leave of absence through Deceinber 22, 1970. The collective-bargaining agreement between the union and the company required that employees either request an extension before their leave expired or return to work as scheduled. Accordingly, respondent sought to renew his leave in late December. Correspondence between Union Pacific and respondent’s attorney, however, revealed that the company had not received a doctor’s statement supporting respondent’s request. Notwithstanding Union Pacific’s written assurance on January 25, 1971, that it would await arrival of this document before reviewing respondent’s case, respondent was discharged on February 3 because, in the company’s view, he had not properly requested an extension.

After respondent’s attorney failed to persuade Union Pacific to reconsider its decision, he wrote the IBEW District Chairman, D. F. Jones, requesting that the union initiate grievance proceedings on respondent’s behalf pursuant to Rule 21 of the collective-bargaining agreement. The letter was dated March 26, and was received by Jones on March 27, 52 days after the dismissal. Although Jones was aware that Rule 21 required presentation of grievances “within 60 days from the date of the occurrence on which the claim ... is based,” see n. 2, swpra, and that this deadline was imminent, he did not immediately prepare a grievance letter. Rather, ne contacted the IBEW General Chairman, Leo Wisniski, who insisted that respondent personally request in writing the union’s assistance. Wisniski drafted a letter stating that the union could not “handle” the claim until such an authorization was received. App. to Brief for Respondent 8a. Instead of telephoning respondent or sending the letter directly to him, Wis-niski mailed the letter to Jones, who then signed and forwarded it to respondent on April 5, 61 days after the discharge. Without awaiting the requested written authorization, Jones filed respondent’s claim with Union Pacific on April 6, two days after the time for submission had expired. The claim form had been prepared by Wisniski in Omaha, Neb., sent to Jones in Rawlins, Wyo., and then mailed by Jones to the railroad in Omaha.

Both Union Pacific and the National Railroad Adjustment Board denied respondent’s claim on the ground that IBEW had not complied with the 60-day filing deadline. Respondent then brought this suit against the union and several of its officers. He alleged that by filing the grievance out of time, the union had breached its duty of fair representation, which resulted in dismissal of his wrongful discharge claim. A jury found for respondent, awarding him $40,000 actual damages and $75,000 punitive damages, and the District Court accepted the jury’s award. No. C 74-50B (Wyo., May 17, 1976).

The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s judgment in most respects, but remanded the case for consideration of whether the punitive damages award was excessive. 572 F. 2d 710 (CA10 1978). It rejected the suggestion of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that punitive damages are impermissible in unfair representation suits, and declined to adopt the Eighth Circuit’s standard, which allows punitive damages only when union officers display malice toward the employee. Rather, following the Fourth Circuit, the Court of Appeals ruled that a punitive award is- appropriate if a union has acted wantonly or in reckless disregard of an employee’s rights. See Harrison v. United Transportation Union, 530 F. 2d 558, 563-564 (CA4 1975), cert. denied, 425 U. S. 958 (1976).

We granted certiorari to resolve this conflict among the Courts of Appeals as to what if any circumstances justify assessing punitive damages against a union that breaches its duty of fair representation. 439 U. S. 892 (1978).

II

This Court first recognized the statutory duty of fair representation in Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192 (1944), a case arising under the Railway Labor Act. Steele held that when Congress empowered unions to bargain exclusively for all employees in a particular bargaining unit, and thereby subordinated individual interests to the interests of the unit as a whole, it imposed on unions a correlative duty “inseparable from the power of representation” to exercise that authority fairly. Id., at 202-204; see Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U. S. 335, 342 (1964); Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 182 (1967); Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U. S. 554, 564 (1976) . The fair representation doctrine thus serves as a “bulwark to prevent arbitrary union conduct against individuals stripped of traditional forms of redress by the provisions of federal labor law.” Vaca v. Sipes, supra, at 182. Under the doctrine, a union must represent fairly the interests of all bargaining-unit members during the negotiation, administration, and enforcement of collective-bargaining agreements. See, e. g., Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 46 (1957); Humphrey v. Moore, supra, at 342; Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., supra, at 563-567. In particular, a union breaches its duty when its conduct is “arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith,” as, for example, when it “arbitrarily ignore [s] a meritorious grievance or processes] it in [a] perfunctory fashion.” Vaca v. Sipes, supra, at 190, 191.

The right to bring unfair representation actions is judicially “implied from the statute and the policy which it has adopted,” Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., supra, at 204, and Congress has not specified what remedies are available in these suits. Our function, therefore, is to implement a remedial scheme that will best effectuate the purposes of the Railway Labor Act, recognizing that the overarching legislative goal is to facilitate collective bargaining and to achieve industrial peace. See 323 U. S., at 204; Textile Workers v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448, 456-457 (1957); Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S. 740, 759 (1961); cf. Clearfield Trust Co. v. United States, 318 U. S. 363 (1943). Whether awarding punitive damages would comport with this national labor policy is the issue on which the instant case turns.

Ill

Punitive damages “are not compensation for injury. Instead, they are private fines levied by civil juries to punish reprehensible conduct and to deter its future occurrence.” Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 350 (1974). In respondent's view, this extraordinary sanction is necessary to vindicate an employee's right to fair representation. Because actual damages caused by a union's failure to pursue grievances may be de minimis, see Harrison v. United Transportation Union, supra, at 563; St. Clair v. Local Union No. 515, 422 F. 2d 128, 132 (CA6 1969); see also infra, at 50, respondent contends that a strong legal remedy is essential to encourage unfair representation suits and thereby inhibit union misconduct.

We do not doubt that the prospect of lucrative monetary recoveries unrelated to actual injury would be a powerful incentive to bring unfair representation actions. Similarly, the threat of large punitive sanctions would likely affect unions’ willingness to pursue individual complaints. However, offsetting these potential benefits is the possibility that punitive awards could impair the financial stability of unions and unsettle the careful balance of individual and collective interests which this Court has previously articulated in the unfair representation area.

The fundamental purpose of unfair representation suits is to compensate for injuries caused by violations of employees’ rights. In approving “resort to the usual judicial remedies of injunction and award of damages when appropriate,” Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S., at 207 (emphasis added), the Court emphasized that relief in each case should be fashioned to make the injured employee whole. Id., at 206-207. This compensation principle was again invoked in Vaca v. Sipes, supra, to govern an unfair representation suit for compensatory and punitive damages based on a union’s refusal to process a grievance alleging wrongful discharge. The Court there rejected the contention that an order compelling arbitration was the employee’s only remedy, and concluded that damages and equitable relief could be awarded when necessary to ensure full compensation. 386 U. S., at 196.

The Court in Vaca applied the compensation principle not only to gauge the sufficiency of relief but also to limit union liability. Because an employee can recover in full from his employer for its breach of contract, we reasoned that a union which fails to process a grievance predicated on that breach cannot be held liable for damages attributable to the employer’s conduct. Id., at 197. Recognizing the “real hardship” that large damages awards could impose on unions, the Court found “no merit in requiring [them] to pay the employer’s share of the damages.” Ibid. To avoid burdening unions beyond the extent necessary to compensate employees for their injuries, we refused to create an exception even for those unions with indemnification rights against employers. Ibid. Although acknowledging that this apportionment rule might in some instances effectively immunize unions from liability for a clear breach of duty, the Court found considerations of deterrence insufficient to risk endangering the financial stability of such institutions. Id., at 198. Accordingly, we vacated the jury’s award of compensatory and punitive damages against the union since “all or almost all” of the employee’s damages were attributable to the discharge. Ibid. This limitation on union liability thus reflects an attempt to afford individual employees redress for injuries caused by union misconduct without compromising the collective interests of union members in protecting limited funds. To permit punitive damages, which, by definition, provide monetary relief “in excess of . . . actual loss,” Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 58, 86 (1897), could undermine this careful accommodation. Because juries are accorded broad discretion both as to the imposition and amount of punitive damages, see Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 349-350; Prosser § 2, pp. 13-14, the impact of these windfall recoveries is unpredictable and potentially substantial. Cf. Hall v. Cole, 412 U. S. 1, 9 n. 13 (1973). Such awards could deplete union treasuries, thereby impairing the effectiveness of unions as collective-bargaining agents. Inflicting this risk on employees, whose welfare depends upon the strength of their union, is simply too great a price for whatever deterrent effect punitive damages may have. Cf. Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634, 658 (1958) (Warren, C. J., dissenting).

Additionally, the prospect of punitive damages in cases such as this could curtail the broad discretion that Vaca afforded unions in handling grievances. We there rejected the notion that employees could force unions to process their claims irrespective of the terms of the collective-bargaining agreement, and ruled that a union satisfies its obligation to represent employees fairly if it does not “arbitrarily ignore a meritorious grievance or process it in a perfunctory fashion.” Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S., at 191-194. In so holding, the Court stressed that union discretion is essential to the proper functioning of the collective-bargaining system. Union supervision of employee complaints promotes settlements, avoids processing of frivolous claims, and strengthens the employer’s confidence in the union. Id., at 191-193. Without these screening and settlement procedures, the Court found that the costs of private dispute resolution could ultimately render the system impracticable. Ibid.

Just as unlimited access to the grievance process could undermine collective bargaining, so too the threat of punitive damages could disrupt the responsible decisionmaking essential to peaceful labor relations. In order to protect against a future punitive award of unforeseeable magnitude, unions might feel compelled to process frivolous claims or resist fair settlements. Indeed, even those unions confident that most juries would hold in their favor could be deterred by the possibility of punitive damages from taking actions clearly in the interest of union members. Absent clear congressional guidance, we decline to inject such an element of uncertainty into union decisions regarding their representative functions.

Acknowledging the “essentially remedial” objectives of the National Labor Relations Act, this Court has refused to permit punitive sanctions in certain unfair labor practice cases, see, e. g., Republic Steel Corp. v. NLRB, 311 U. S. 7, 10-12 (1940); Carpenters v. NLRB, 365 U. S. 651, 655 (1961), and in actions under § 303 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U. S. C. § 187, Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252, 260-261 (1964). Like the NLRA, the Railway Labor Act is essentially remedial in purpose. See supra, at 47-48; 45 U. S. C. § 151a; Virginian R. Co. v. Railway Employees, 300 U. S. 515, 542-548 (1937); Machinists v. Street, 367 U. S., at 759-760; see also Republic Steel Corp. v. NLRB, supra, at 10-11. Because general labor policy disfavors punishment, and the adverse consequences of punitive damages awards could be substantial, we hold that such damages may not be assessed against a union that breaches its duty of fair representation by failing properly to pursue a grievance. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment below insofar as it upheld the award of punitive damages. „ 7 ,

So ordered.

Mr. Justice Blackmun,

with whom The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Rehnquist, and Mr. Justice Stevens join,

concurring in the result.

The Court now adopts a per se rule that a union's breach of its duty of fair representation can never render it liable for punitive damages, no matter how egregious its breach maybe. I seriously doubt both the correctness and the wisdom of this holding. Whatever the merits of the Court’s per se rule, however, there is no need to propound such a blanket proscription in this particular case. The union’s conduct here betrayed nothing more than negligence, and thus presented an inappropriate occasion for awarding punitive damages under any formula. In order to dispose of this case, therefore, the Court need hold only that the trial judge erred as a matter of law in submitting the punitive damages issue to the jury; this is the holding I would adopt. Inasmuch as the Court reaches to outlaw punitive damages in all unfair representation cases, I shall attempt to show why I think the Court errs and why I concur only in the result.

A

Because the duty of fair representation is judicially created, the consequences of its breach necessarily are left to judicial determination. “The appropriate remedy for a breach of a union’s duty of fair representation,” the Court wrote in Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S. 171, 195 (1967), “must vary with the circumstances of the particular breach.” Depending on the circumstances of the particular breach, the Court wrote in Steele v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 323 U. S. 192, 207 (1944), “the statute contemplates resort to the usual judicial remedies of injunction and award of damages.” These cases make clear that a court, seeking a remedy to match the union’s wrong, has at its disposal the full panoply of tools traditionally used by courts to do justice between parties. Punitive damages, being one of these tools, thus are presumptively available for use in appropriate cases, unless Congress has directed otherwise. Since Congress has never expressly interdicted their use, the Court’s decision to ban punitive damages from the arsenal necessarily rests upon inference — upon a perception that punitive damages in unfair representation suits are per se inconsistent with “federal labor policy.” The Court proffers four main theories to support this inference. I find none of them persuasive.

First, the Court discerns in Vaca and Steele a “compensation principle,” a principle supposedly dictating that a damages award may “make the injured employee whole,” but may do no more. Ante, at 49, and n. 12. If these cases do embody a “compensation principle” — really, a neologism in this area of the law — it is a principle of a vastly different sort from that on which the Court relies. Steele and Vaca assuredly do stand for the proposition that a worker injured by his union’s breach of duty must at least be made whole. In Steele the Court held the plaintiffs entitled to a judicial damages remedy inasmuch as no “adequate administrative remedy” was available. 323 U. S., at 206-207. In Vaca it refused to find exclusive jurisdiction of unfair representation suits in the National Labor Relations Board, lest victims of union discrimination, owing to the Board’s limited remedial powers, on occasion be left remediless. 386 U. S., at 182-183. And in Vaca it also refused to limit judicial relief to a decree compelling arbitration of the underlying grievance, reasoning that an arbitrator might lack power to award damages against the union, and holding instead that “the court should be free to decide the contractual claim and to award the employee appropriate damages or equitable relief.” Id., at 196. In Vaca and Steele, in other words, the Court held that a worker’s remedies must include damages so that in all cases he would be fully compensated. But in neither case did it hold that the worker’s remedies must exclude damages to the extent they rise above the full compensation norm. The Court has read into Vaca’s affirmative compensation policy a negative pregnant; it has transformed its liberal “compensation principle” into a parsimonious limiting rule; it has converted the floor beneath the injured employee’s remedies into a ceiling on top of them.

Vaca and Steele, to my mind, contain no such negative pregnant. In Vaca the jury had awarded the worker both compensatory and punitive damages, 386 U. S., at 173; the Court held that “such damages are not recoverable from the Union in the circumstances of this case,” id., at 195, pointing out that “all or almost all” of the worker’s damages were attributable to the employer, not to the union. Id., at 198. Vaca stands only for the proposition that a union not chargeable with compensatory damages may not be taxed with punitive damages either. If Vaca contains any negative pregnant, it is that when a union is chargeable with compensatory damages, it may be taxed with punitive damages too. In Steele, the Court held that “the statute contemplates resort to the usual judicial remedies of injunction and award of damages.” 323 U. S., at 207. This language, read in context, seems expansive to me. The Court now, by italicizing “usual,” implies that punitive damages, being an extraordinary sanction, are an “unusual remedy,” and hence outside Steele’s remedial compass. Ante, at 49. This reading is most strained. The Court’s italics may make its point clear, but they do not make its argument correct, and they provide no substitute for a fairminded appraisal of what Steele says. Neither Vaca nor Steele, in my view, supports the negative “compensation principle” upon which the Court relies.

The Court’s second reason for banishing punitive damages from the pantheon, closely related to the first, is that federal labor policy is “essentially remedial” and hence inhospitable to punitive awards. Ante, at 52. The Court cites two major cases to support this theory. Neither is apposite. In Republic Steel Corp. v. NLRB, 311 U. S. 7 (1940), the Court held that the Board cannot order punitive sanctions. But the question in that case was whether “Congress [had] conferred the power upon the Board to impose such requirements.” Id., at 10. The question, in other words, was simply one of the Board’s statutory competence; the Court decided that punitive sanctions were “beyond the Board’s authority” and that it lacked “jurisdiction” to impose them. Id., at 11, 13. Republic Steel has no pertinence here, since the federal courts have both the jurisdiction and the authority to impose punitive sanctions in their efforts to devise a federal law of remedies. In Teamsters v. Morton, 377 U. S. 252 (1964), the Court held that punitive damages may not be recovered in § 303 suits for damages from secondary boycotts. But Morton was a case of statutory construction. Section 303 expressly authorizes an employer’s recovery only of “the damages by him sustained.” 29 U. S. C. § 187 (b). “Punitive damages for violation of § 303,” the Court reasoned in Morton, “conflict with the congressional judgment, reflected both in the language of the federal statute and in its legislative history, that recovery for an employer’s business losses caused by a union’s peaceful secondary activities . . . should be limited to actual, compensatory damages.” 377 U. S., at 260 (footnotes omitted). Since Congress has expressed no such prohibition on punitive damages in unfair representation suits, Morton is simply inapposite here. Neither Republic Steel nor Morton, therefore, supports the Court’s invocation of an “essentially remedial” theory in the fair representation area.

The third reason the Court gives in support of its per se rule is that punitive damages awards “could deplete union treasuries, thereby impairing the effectiveness of unions as collective-bargaining agents.” Ante, at 50-51. It is true that Vaca, in enunciating its formula for apportioning damages in wrongful-discharge cases, said that “[i]t could be a real hardship on the union” to pay damages in certain circumstances. 386 U. S., at 197. But the Court was not talking about unions’■ fiscal soundness; one searches the opinion in vain for references to “depletion of union treasuries” or “impairment 6f union effectiveness in collective bargaining.” What Vaca said was that it could be a real hardship to make a union pay “damages attributable solely to the employer’s breach of contract.” Ibid. It is, obviously, a “real hardship” for anyone, regardless of his wealth, to be forced to pay money for something that was not his fault. And even if Vaca were read to evince concern for union treasuries, even in cases where the union is at fault, this concern would not support the Court’s proscription of punitive damages where the union’s fault is egregious. As the Court notes, ante, at ’ 48, the damages a union will be forced to pay in a typical unfair representation suit are minimal; under Vaca’s apportionment formula, the bulk of the award will be paid by the employer, the perpetrator of the wrongful discharge, in a parallel § 301 action. See 386 U. S., at 197-198. Union treasuries, in other words, will emerge unscathed in the general run of unfair representation cases. Given this, it can work no undue hardship on union fiscal soundness to permit punitive awards in those rare cases where the union has notoriously misbehaved.

The fourth theory underpinning the Court’s per se rule is that “the prospect of punitive damages in cases such as this could curtail the broad discretion that Vaca afforded unions in handling grievances,” and thus “could disrupt the responsible decisionmaking essential to peaceful labor relations.” Ante, at 51, 52. The Court’s theory seems to be that a union, fearing punitive damages, might become more vigilant in processing workers’ grievances'; that this vigilance might lead unions to process frivolous grievances; that this frivolity might antagonize the employer; and that this antagonism might beget disharmony at the bargaining table. This reasoning seems tenuous to me. Surely, the Court cannot believe that such airy speculations will induce union shop stewards to abandon all vestiges of common sense as they go about their diurnal chores. And even if the prospect of punitive damages did operate to chill a union’s reason “in cases such as this,” no Member of the Court is proposing to award punitive damages “in cases such as this.” Everyone agrees that punitive damages here were improper. The question is whether punitive damages are also to be outlawed in cases, unlike this one, where the union’s conduct has been truly egregious. A little chilling of union “discretion” in those cases would not bother me.

B

The Court’s four proffered reasons in support of a per se ban on punitive damages thus leave me unpersuaded. I am not alone in feeling this way, for no Court of Appeals to consider the question has embraced the per se rule the Court today goes out of its way to adopt. As the Court observes, ante, at 45-46, the Fourth Circuit, followed by the Tenth in this case, has approved of punitive damages in unfair representation cases. Harrison v. United Transportation Union, 530 F. 2d 558, 563-564 (1975), cert. denied, 425 U. S. 958 (1976). The Eighth Circuit has expressed the view that punitive damages may be awarded where the union is guilty of “outrageous or extraordinary conduct.” Butler v. Teamsters Local 823, 514 F. 2d 442, 454, cert denied, 423 U. S. 924 (1975). The Ninth Circuit, while barring punitive damages on the facts, restricted its holding to “grievances of the kind alleged” in the case. Williams v. Pacific Maritime Assn., 421 F. 2d 1287, 1289 (1970). Even the Third Circuit, upon whose decision the Court relies to make out a Circuit conflict here, ante, at 45-46, declined to embrace the Court’s per se approach, refusing to “decide whether any circumstances exist in which a punitive-type remedy . . . for union misconduct might be implied under the Railway Labor Act,” and holding only that punitive damages were unavailable where (as in that case) no actual damages had been shown. Deboles v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 552 F. 2d 1005, 1019, cert. denied, 434 U. S. 837 (1977).

Equally instructive, in my view, are Court of Appeals cases upholding punitive damages awards in suits brought by workers against unions under the Landrum-Griffin Act. That Act outlines a “bill of rights” for union members, 29 U. S. C. § 411 (a), and provides that actions for violation of those rights may be had to recover “such relief (including injunctions) as may be appropriate.” § 412. Every Circuit to consider the question has held that punitive damages are “appropriate relief” when a union’s conduct manifests “actual malice or reckless or wanton indifference” to members’ speech and associational rights. Boilermakers v. Braswell, 388 F. 2d 193, 199-201 (CA5), cert. denied, 391 U. S. 935 (1968); Cooke v. Orange Belt Dist. Council, 529 F. 2d 815, 820 (CA9 1976); Morrissey v. National Maritime Union, 544 F. 2d 19, 24-25 (CA2 1976); Keene v. IUOE Local 624, 569 F. 2d 1375, 1381-1382, and n. 8 (CA5 1978). These courts noted that punitive damages would serve a legitimate deterrent purpose in appropriate cases, Braswell, 388 F. 2d, at 200; Cooke, 529 F. 2d, at 820, and held that “[i]f punitive damages can be awarded against other defendants, they can be awarded against unions as well.” Morrissey, 544 F. 2d, at 25. This reasoning, I think, is equally in point here. The Court properly reserves decision on Landrum-Griffin cases, ante, at 47 n. 9, but its pronouncements about “[t]he compensation principle,” about the “windfall” nature of punitive damages, about the need to safeguard union treasuries, and about the “essentially remedial” quality of federal labor policy, all would seem to apply with equal force to § 412 suits, and they leave me uneasy. Although the Court professes willingness to draw hairline distinctions between different types of tort suits brought by workers against unions under federal labor laws, this willingness, in my view, only suggests how tenuous is the evidence of “congressional intent” on which the Court relies to back up its -per se rule here.

c

The Court of Appeals’ unanimous refusal to erect a per se bar to punitive damages against unions, both in unfair representation cases and in Landrum-Griffin cases, seems judicious to me. If a union’s conduct should reveal intentional racial discrimination, deliberate personal animus, or conscious infringement of speech and associational freedoms, I can discern no principle of federal labor policy that stands in the way of a punitive award. Punitive damages in such an exceptional case will serve at least to deter egregious union conduct, and Vaca makes clear that deterrence is a proper objective in unfair representation actions. See 386 U. S., at 187. If the Court feels obliged to devise some “careful balance of individual and collective interests” here, ante, at 48, the solution, in my view, is not to ban punitive damages across the board, but to restrict them to their proper sphere, namely, to those rare cases where the union’s conduct can truly be described as outrageous.

For these reasons, I would hesitate to embrace the Court’s per se rule even in a case that squarely presented that question for decision. What I find particularly hard to fathom is the Court’s willingness to promulgate a per se rule here, where the pronouncement is manifestly unnecessary to decision. This case involves no racial discrimination, no trampling on workers’ “bill of rights”; the record does not suggest — indeed, respondent does not even contend — that the union’s conduct was motivated by personal hostility. For all this record shows, the union, in neglecting to act promptly on respondent’s grievance, was simply following its standard operating procedure, a procedure admittedly inappropriate here, given the time constraints under which the union was operating, but a procedure for whose inappropriateness in this case respondent himself was at least partly responsible, since it was he who failed to notify the union until 52 days of the contract’s 60-day limit had expired. The union’s conduct, in other words, was negligent or, at worst, grossly negligent. No court, to my knowledge, has ever held that negligence can form the basis for a proper punitive damages award. Especially should this be so in cases arising under the federal labor statutes.

To decide this case, in sum, the Court need hold only that the trial judge erred as a matter of law in submitting the punitive damages issue to the jury. Because the Court goes further and proscribes punitive awards in much more difficult and questionable situations, not presented here, I cannot join the opinion and I concur in the result only.

       44 Stat. 577, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 151 et seq.

       Rule 21 (a)(1) provides:
      “All claims or grievances must be presented in writing by ... or on behalf of the employee involved, to the officer of the Carrier authorized to receive same, within 60 days from the date of the occurrence on which the claim or grievance is based.”

       Prior to initiating this action, respondent filed a separate suit against the railroad seeking recovery for work-related personal injuries and for the allegedly wrongful discharge.. As part of a settlement of the personal injury action, respondent waived his wrongful discharge claim. App. 73.

       The court held, inter alia, that the jury was correctly instructed on the elements of the cause of action and on the principles for assessing actual damages. It also found the evidence sufficient to support the jury verdict. 572 F. 2d, at 714-718.
      Our grant of certiorari was limited to the punitive damages question. See 439 U. S. 892 (1978). Consequently, for purposes of our analysis, we must take as correct the findings below that IBEW breached its duty of fair representation and that the $40,000 compensatory damages award was proper.

        Deboles v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 552 F. 2d 1005, 1019 (CA3), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 837 (1977). See also Williams v. Pacific Maritime Assn., 421 F. 2d 1287 (CA9 1970).

       See Butler v. Teamsters Local 823, 514 F. 2d 442, 454 (CA8), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 924 (1975). Under the Eighth Circuit’s analysis, plaintiffs may be required to demonstrate that punitive damages are needed to deter future union misconduct. See 514 F. 2d, at 454; Emmanuel v. Omaha Carpenters District Council, 560 F. 2d 382, 386 (CA8 1977).

       The court below further determined that the jury instructions comported with this legal standard. The District Court had charged the jury that it could award punitive damages if petitioners acted “maliciously, or wantonly, or oppressively.” App. 65.
      Mr. Justice Blackmun surmises that “as a matter of law,” the union’s conduct “betrayed nothing more than negligence.” Post, at 53. This conclusion necessarily assumes that there was insufficient evidence of malicious, wanton, or oppressive conduct to justify the jury’s punitive damages award. We, however, are unwilling to substitute our judgment for that of the jury, District Court, and Court of Appeals on this essentially evidentiary question. See Tr. 270-271; App. 91-94; 572 F. 2d, at 719; Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co., 336 U. S. 271, 275 (1949); Berenyi v. Immigration Director, 385 U. S. 630, 635-636 (1967).

       The duty of fair representation is also implicit in the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., because that statute, like the Railway Labor Act, affords unions exclusive power to represent all employees of a bargaining unit. See, e. g., Syres v. Oil Workers, 350 U. S. 892 (1955); Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330 (1953); Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U. S., at 177. For a discussion of the similarities between unfair representation suits under the two Acts, see Feller, A General Theory of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, 61 Calif. L. Rev. 663, 676-718 (1973).

       Contrary to the fears expressed in the opinion concurring in the result, post, at 59, we express no view on the propriety of punitive awards in suits under the Landrum-Griffin Act. We are concerned here with judicially created remedies for a judicially implied cause of action. Whether the explicit statutory language of 29 U. S. C. §§ 411 and 412 and the accompanying legislative history authorize punitive damages awards obviously involves different considerations.

       See W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 2, pp. 9-11 (4th ed. 1971) (hereinafter Prosser); D. Dobbs, Law of Remedies § 3.9, p. 204 (1973); Scott v. Donald, 165 U. S. 58, 86 (1897).

        Vaca involved a union certified under the National Labor Relations Act and a collective-bargaining agreement that permitted employees to initiate the grievance process, but precluded them from personally pursuing arbitration once grievance procedures were exhausted. 386 U. S., at 175 n. 3. The Railway Labor Act is somewhat more solicitous of individual rights. It authorizes employees who are unsuccessful at the grievance level to seek relief in their own right from the National Railroad Adjustment Board. §§ 3 First (i), (j), 45 U. S. C. §§ 153 First (i), (j).

       The compensation principle is also reflected in Vaca’s refusal to hold unfair representation claims within the exclusive jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. Because the “public interest in effectuating the policies of the federal labor laws, not the wrong done the individual employee, is always the Board’s principal concern in fashioning unfair labor practice remedies,” we feared that denial of a judicial forum might “frustrate the basic purposes underlying the duty of fair representation.” Vaca v. Sipes, supra, at 182 n. 8, 183 (emphasis added). See also Glover v. St. Louis-San Francisco R. Co., 393 U. S. 324, 328-329 (1969).

       On similar reasoning, the Court has applied Vaca’s apportionment principle to cases arising under the Railway Labor Act. In Czosek v. O’Mara, 397 U. S. 25, 29 (1970), we held that “damages against the union for loss of employment are unrecoverable except to the extent that its refusal to handle the grievances added to the difficulty and expense of collecting from the employer.”

       Moreover, it cannot be ignored that punitive damages may be employed to punish unpopular defendants. As we observed in the defamation context:
      “[Since] juries assess punitive damages in wholly unpredictable amounts bearing no necessary relation to the actual harm caused . . . they remain free to use their discretion selectively to punish expressions of unpopular views. Like the doctrine of presumed damages, jury discretion to award punitive damages unnecessarily exacerbates the danger . . . Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 350 (1974).
      Community hostility toward unions, management, or minority views can thus find expression in punitive awards. See Automobile Workers v. Russell, 356 U. S. 634, 651 (1958) (Warren, C. J., dissenting).


author: Mr. Justice Rehnquist Mr. Justice Blackmun, Mr. Justice Stevens,

text:
    PARKER v. RANDOLPH et al.
    No. 78-99.
    Argued March 20, 1979
    Decided May 29, 1979

      Rehnquist, J., announced the Court’s judgment and delivered an opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and III, in which Burger, C. J., and Stewart, White, and Blackmun, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Part II, in which Burger, C. J., and Stewart and White, JJ., joined. Blackmun, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, post, p. 77. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN and Marshall, JJ., joined, post, p. 81. Powell, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

      Michael E. Terry, Assistant Attorney General of Tennessee, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief were William M. Leech, Jr., Attorney General, and Robert E. Kendrick, Deputy Attorney General.

      Walter L. Evans, by appointment of the Court, 439 U. S. 1064, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondents.
   Mr. Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court (Parts I and III) together with an opinion (Part II), and announced the judgment of the Court.

in which The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Stewart, and Mr. Justice White joined,

In Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968), this Court reversed the robbery conviction of a defendant who had been implicated in the crime by his codefendant’s extrajudicial confession. Because the codefendant had not taken the stand at the joint trial and thus could not be cross-examined, the Court held that admission of the codefendant’s confession had deprived the defendant of his rights under the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. The issue before us in this case is whether Bruton requires reversal of a defendant’s conviction when the defendant himself has confessed and his confession “interlocks” with and supports the confession of his codefendant. We hold that it does not.

I

Respondents were convicted of murder committed during the commission of a robbery and were sentenced to life imprisonment. The cast of characters playing out the scenes that led up to the fatal shooting could have come from the pen of Bret Harte. The story began in June 1970, when one William Douglas, a professional gambler from Las Vegas, Nev., arrived in Memphis, Tenn., calling himself Ray Blay-lock and carrying a gun and a deck of cards. It ended on the evening of July 6, 1970, when Douglas was shot and killed in a Memphis apartment.

Testimony at the trial in the Tennessee state court showed that one Woppy Gaddy, who was promised a cut of Douglas’ take, arranged a game of chance between Douglas and Robert Wood, a sometime Memphis gambler. Unwilling to trust the outcome of the contest entirely to luck or skill, . Douglas marked the cards, and by game’s end Robert Wood and his money had been separated. A second encounter between the two men yielded similar results, and Wood grew suspicious of Douglas’ good fortune. In order to determine whether and how Douglas was cheating, Wood brought to the third game an acquaintance named Tommy Thomas, who had a reputation of being a “pretty good poker player.” Unknown to Wood, however, Thomas’ father and Douglas had been close friends; Thomas, predictably, threw in his lot with Douglas, purposefully lost some $1,000, and reported to Wood that the game was clean. Wood nonetheless left the third game convinced that he was being cheated and intent on recouping his now considerable losses. He explained the situation to his brother, Joe E. Wood, and the two men decided to relieve Douglas of his ill-gotten gains by staging a robbery of the upcoming fourth game.

At this juncture respondents Randolph, Pickens, and Hamilton entered the picture. To carry out the staged robbery, Joe Wood enlisted respondent Hamilton, who was one of his employees, and the latter in turn associated respondents Randolph and Pickens. Douglas and Robert Wood sat down to the fourth and final contest on the evening of July 6, 1970. Joe Wood and Thomas were present in the room as spectators. During the course of the game, Douglas armed himself with a .38-caliber pistol and an automatic shotgun; in response to this unexpected development Joe Wood pulled a derringer pistol on Douglas and Thomas, gave the gun to Robert Wood, and left to tell respondents to move in on the game. Before respondents arrived, however, Douglas reached for his pistol and was shot and killed by Robert Wood. Moments later, respondents and Joe Wood broke down the apartment door, Robert Wood gathered up the cash left on the table, and the gang of five fled into the night. Respondents were subsequently apprehended by the police and confessed to their involvement in the crime.

Respondents and the Wood brothers were jointly tried and convicted of murder during the commission of a robbery. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-2402 (1975). Each defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment. Robert Wood took the stand at trial, admitting that he had killed Douglas, but claiming that the shooting was in self-defense. Thomas described Douglas’ method of cheating at cards and admitted his complicity in the fraud on Robert Wood. He also testified in substance that he was present in the room when Joe Wood produced the derringer and when Robert Wood shot and killed Douglas.

None of the respondents took the stand. Thomas could not positively identify any of them, and although Robert Wood named Hamilton as one of the three men involved in the staged robbery, he did not clearly identify Randolph and Pickens as the other two. The State’s case against respondents thus rested primarily on their oral confessions, found by the trial court to have been freely and voluntarily given, which were admitted into evidence through the testimony of several officers of the Memphis Police Department. A written confession signed by Pickens was also admitted into evidence over his objection that it had been obtained in violation of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). The trial court instructed the jury that each confession could be used only against the defendant who gave it and could not be considered as evidence of a codefendant’s guilt.

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed respondents’ convictions, holding that they could not be guilty of felony murder since Douglas had been shot before they arrived on the scene and, alternatively, that admission of their confessions at the joint trial violated this Court’s decision in Bruton. The Tennessee Supreme Court in turn reversed the Court of Criminal Appeals and reinstated the convictions. Because “each and every defendant either through words or actions demonstrated his knowledge that 'killing may be necessary,’ ” App. 237, the court held that respondents’ agreement to participate in the robbery rendered them liable under the Tennessee felony-murder statute for Douglas’ death. The Tennessee Supreme Court also disagreed with the Court of Criminal Appeals that Bruton had been violated,- emphasizing that the confession at issue in Bruton had inculpated a nonconfessing defendant in a joint trial at which neither defendant took the stand. Here, in contrast, the “interlocking inculpatory confessions” of respondents Randolph, Pickens, and Hamilton, “clearly demonstrated the involvement of each, as to crucial facts such as time, location, felonious activity, and awareness of the overall plan or scheme.” App. 245. Accordingly, the Tennessee Supreme Court concluded: “The fact that jointly tried codefendants have confessed precludes a violation of the Bruton rule where the confessions are similar in material aspects.” Ibid., quoting State v. Elliott, 524 S. W. 2d 473, 477-478 (Tenn. 1975).

The United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee thereafter granted respondents’ applications for writs of habeas corpus, ruling that their rights under Bruton had been violated and that introduction of respondent Pickens’ uncounseled written confession had violated his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, supra. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that admission of the confessions violated the rule announced in Bruton and that the error was not harmless since the evidence against each respondent, even considering his confession, was “not so overwhelming as to compel the jury verdict of guilty . . . .” 575 P. 2d 1178, 1182 (1978). The Court of Appeals frankly acknowledged that its decision conflicts with decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit holding the Bruton rule inapplicable “[w]here the jury has heard not only a codefendant’s confession but the defendant’s own [interlocking] confession . . . .” United States ex rel. Catanzaro v. Mancusi, 404 F. 2d 296, 300 (1968), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 942 (1970). Accord, United States ex rel. Stanbridge v. Zelker, 514 P. 2d 45, 48-50, cert. denied, 423 U. S. 872 (1975); United States ex rel. Duff v. Zelker, 452 F. 2d 1009, 1010 (1971), cert. denied, 406 U. S. 932 (1972). We granted certiorari in this case to resolve that conflict. 439 U. S. 978 (1978).

II

In Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232 (1957), a nontestifying codefendant's confession, which incriminated a defendant who had not confessed, was admitted at a joint trial over defendant’s hearsay objection. Concluding that “it was reasonably possible for the jury to follow” the trial court’s instruction to consider the confession only against the de-clarant, this Court held that admission of the confession did not constitute reversible error. Little more than a decade later, however, Delli Paoli was expressly overruled in Bruton v. United States. In that case, defendants Bruton and Evans were convicted of armed postal robbery after a joint trial. Although Evans did not take the stand, a postal inspector was allowed to testify that Evans had orally confessed to having committed the robbery with Bruton. The trial judge instructed the jury that Evans’ confession was competent evidence against Evans, but was inadmissible hearsay against Bruton and therefore could not be considered in determining Bruton’s guilt.

This Court reversed Bruton’s conviction, noting that despite the trial court’s admittedly clear limiting instruction, “the introduction of Evans’ confession added substantial, perhaps even critical, weight to the Government’s case in a form not subject to cross-examination.” 391 U. S., at 127-128. Bruton was therefore held to have been denied his Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. The Bruton court reasoned that although in many cases the jury can and will follow the trial judge’s instruction to disregard inadmissible evidence,

“there are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored. Such a context is presented here, where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial. Not only are the incriminations devastating to the defendant but their credibility is inevitably suspect, a fact recognized when accomplices do take the stand and the jury is instructed to weigh their testimony carefully given the recognized motivation to shift blame onto others. The unreliability of such evidence is intolerably compounded when the alleged accomplice, as here, does not testify and cannot be tested by cross-examination. It was against such threats to a fair trial that the Confrontation Clause was directed.” Id., at 135-136 (citations and footnotes omitted).

One year after Bruton was decided, this Court rejected the notion that erroneous admission at a joint trial of evidence such as that introduced in Bruton automatically requires reversal of an otherwise valid conviction. See Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969). In some cases, the properly admitted evidence of guilt is so overwhelming, and the prejudicial effect of the codefendant’s admission so insignificant by comparison, that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that introduction of the admission at trial was harmless error.

Petitioner urges us to follow the reasoning of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to hold that the Bruton rule does not apply in the context of interlocking confessions. Alternatively, he contends that if introduction of interlocking confessions at a joint trial does violate Bruton, the error is all but automatically to be deemed harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We agree with petitioner that admission at the joint trial of respondents’ interlocking confessions did not infringe respondents’ right of confrontation secured by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, but prefer to cast the issue in a slightly broader form than that posed by petitioner.

Bruton recognized that admission at a joint trial of the incriminating extrajudicial statements of a nontestifying codefendant can have “devastating” consequences to a non-confessing defendant, adding “substantial, perhaps even critical, weight to the Government’s case.” 391 U. S., at 128. Such statements go to the jury untested by cross-examination and, indeed, perhaps unanswered altogether unless the defendant waives his Fifth Amendment privilege and takes the stand. The prejudicial impact of a codefendant’s confession upon an incriminated defendant who has, insofar as the jury is concerned, maintained his innocence from the beginning is simply too great in such cases to be cured by a limiting instruction. The same cannot be said, however, when the defendant’s own confession — “probably the most probative and damaging evidence that can be admitted against him,” id., at 139 (White, J., dissenting) — is properly introduced at trial. ' The defendant is “the most knowledgeable and unimpeachable source of information about his past conduct,” id., at 140 (White, J., dissenting), and one can scarcely imagine evidence more damaging to his defense than his own admission of guilt. Thus, the incriminating statements of a codefendant will seldom, if ever, be of the “devastating” character referred to in Bruton when the incriminated defendant has admitted his own guilt. The right protected by Bruton — the “constitutional right of cross-examination,” id., at 137 — has far less practical value to a defendant who has confessed to the crime than to one who has consistently maintained his innocence. Successfully impeaching a codefendant’s confession on cross-examination would likely yield small advantage to the defendant whose own admission of guilt stands before the jury unchallenged. Nor does the natural “motivation to shift blame onto others,” recognized by the Bruton Court to render the incriminating statements of codefendants “inevitably suspect,” id., at 136, require application of the Bruton rule when the incriminated defendant has corroborated his codefendant’s statements by heaping blame onto himself.

The right of confrontation conferred by the Sixth Amendment is a safeguard to ensure the fairness and accuracy of criminal trials, see Dutton v. Evans, 400 U. S. 74, 89 (1970), and its reach cannot be divorced from the system of trial by jury contemplated by the Constitution. A crucial assumption underlying that system is that juries will follow the instructions given them by the trial judge. Were this not so, it would be pointless for a trial court to instruct a jury, and even more pointless for an appellate court to reverse a criminal conviction because the jury was improperly instructed. The Confrontation Clause has never been held to bar the admission into evidence of every relevant extrajudicial statement made by a nontestifying declarant simply because it in some way incriminates the defendant. See, e. g., id., at 80; Mattox v. United States, 156 U. S. 237, 240-244 (1895). And an instruction directing the jury to consider a codefendant’s extrajudicial statement only against its source has been found sufficient to avoid offending the confrontation right of the implicated defendant in numerous decisions of this Court.

When, as in Bruton, the confessing codefendant has chosen not to take the stand and the implicated defendant has made no extrajudicial admission of guilt, limiting instructions cannot be accepted as adequate to safeguard the defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause. Under such circumstances, the “practical and human limitations of the jury system,” Bruton v. United States, supra, at 135, override the theoretically sound premise that a jury will follow the trial court’s instructions. But when the defendant’s own confession is properly before the jury, we believe that the constitutional scales tip the other way. The possible prejudice resulting from the failure of the jury to follow the trial court’s instructions is not so “devastating” or “vital” to the confessing defendant to require departure from the general rule allowing admission of evidence with limiting instructions. We therefore hold that admission of interlocking confessions with proper limiting instructions conforms to the requirements of the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to respondents Hamilton and Randolph is reversed.

III

The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s granting of habeas corpus relief to respondent Pickens on the additional ground that his rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966), had been violated. Although petitioner sought review of this ruling, our grant of certiorari was limited to the Bruton issue. We thus have no occasion to pass on the merits of the Court of Appeals’ Miranda ruling. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals as to respondent Pickens is affirmed.

Affirmed in part and reversed in part.

Mr. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice Blackmun,

concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I join Parts I and III of the principal opinion and concur in the Court’s judgment affirming in part and reversing in part the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

For me, any error that existed in the admission of the confessions of the codefendants, in violation of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123 (1968), was, on the facts of this case, clearly harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. I refrain from joining Part II of the principal opinion because, as I read it, it abandons the harmless-error analysis the Court previously has applied in similar circumstances and now adopts a per se rule to the effect that Bruton is inapplicable in an interlocking confession situation.

In Bruton, of course, the Court held that the admission in a joint trial of the confession of a codefendant who did not take the stand violated the Sixth Amendment confrontation right of the other defendant. Because in most cases the impact of admitting a codefendant’s confession is severe, and because the credibility of any such confession “is inevitably suspect,” id., at 136, the Court went on to hold that a limiting jury instruction could not alleviate the resultant substantial threat to a fair trial the Confrontation Clause was designed to protect. Id., at 136-137.

In Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969), however, the Court recognized that evidence of guilt could be sufficiently overwhelming so as to render any Bruton error “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” under Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967). Reversal of a conviction, then, was not required merely because of the existence of a Bruton error. The Court applied a similar harmless-error analysis in Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427 (1972), a case concerning the defendant’s own confession and a partially corroborating statement given by a nontestifying codefendant.

In the present case, the principal opinion appears to me to depart from this harmless-error approach and analysis to hold that Bruton simply does not apply in a case involving interlocking confessions. It concludes that in circumstances where one defendant has confessed, the interlocking confession of a codefendant “will seldom, if ever, be of the 'devastating’ character referred to in Bruton.” Ante, at 73. Similarly, it finds that the fact that the confession of a codefendant is “inevitably suspect” is of little weight where interlocking confessions are in evidence. Ibid. Thus, it holds that the right protected by Bruton, i. e., the Confrontation Clause right of cross-examination, “has far less practical value to a defendant who has confessed to the crime than to one who has consistently maintained his innocence.” Ibid. Accordingly, it concludes “that admission of interlocking confessions with proper limiting instructions conforms to the requirements” of the Constitution. Ante, at 75.

The Court has not departed heretofore from a harmless-error approach in Bruton cases. It is unclear where the present analysis will lead in cases where interlocking confessions are not in issue, but where any Bruton error appears harmless under Chapman; for where the Bruton error is harmless, the error in admitting the nontestifying codefend-ant’s confession will be far from devastating. I would be unwilling to depart from the traditional harmless-error analysis in the straightforward Bruton-error situation. Neither would I depart from the harmless-error approach in interlocking confession cases. The fact that confessions may interlock to some degree does not ensure, as a per se matter, that their admission will not prejudice a defendant so substantially that a limiting instruction will not be curative. The two confessions may interlock in part only. Or they may cover only a portion of the events in issue at the trial. Although two interlocking confessions may not be internally inconsistent, one may go far beyond the other in implicating the confessor’s codefendant. In such circumstances, the admission of the confession of the codefendant who does not take the stand could very well serve to prejudice the defendant who is incriminated by the confession, notwithstanding that the defendant’s own confession is, to an extent, interlocking. I fully recognize that in most interlocking-confession cases, any error in admitting the confession of a nontestifying codefendant will be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Even so, I would not adopt a rigid per se rule that forecloses a court from weighing all the circumstances in order to determine whether the defendant in fact was unfairly prejudiced by the admission of even an interlocking confession. Where he was unfairly prejudiced, the mere fact that prejudice was caused by an interlocking confession ought not to override the important interests that the Confrontation Clause protects.

It is possible, of course, that the new approach will result in no more than a shift in analysis. Instead of focusing on whether the error was harmless, defendants and courts will be forced, instead, to inquire whether the confessions were sufficiently interlocking so as to permit a conclusion that Bruton does not apply. And I suppose that after making a determination that the confessions did not interlock to a sufficient degree, the court then would have to make a harmless-error determination anyway, thus adding another step to the process.

Unfortunately, it is not clear that the new approach mandates even an inquiry whether the confessions interlock. Respondents have argued that the confessions in this case, in fact, did not interlock. Brief for Respondents 3-U38. The principal opinion, however, simply assumes the interlock. It thus comes close to saying that so long as all the defendants have made some type of confession which is placed in evidence, Bruton is inapplicable without inquiry into whether the confessions actually interlock and the extent thereof. If it is willing to abandon the factual inquiry that accompanies a harmless-error determination, it should be ready, at least, to substitute an inquiry into whether there is genuine interlocking before it casts the application of Bruton, and the underlying Confrontation Clause right, completely aside.

I merely add that in this case, any Bruton error, in my view, clearly was harmless. The principal issue concerning respondents at trial was whether three Negro males identified by a number of witnesses as having been at the murder scene were indeed the respondents. Each confession placed the confessing respondent at the scene of the killing. Each confession implicated the confessor in the Woods’ plan to rob the poker game. Each confession largely overlapped with and was cumulative to the others. Corroborative testimony from witnesses who were in the apartment placed respondent Hamilton at the scene of the murder and tentatively identified respondent Randolph as one of the Negroes who received a share of the proceeds in Hamilton’s apartment immediately after the killing. The testimony of five witnesses to the events outside the apartment strongly corroborated the confessions. In these circumstances, considering the confession of each respondent against him, I cannot believe that “there is a reasonable- possibility that the improperly admitted evidence contributed to the conviction.” Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S., at 432. Reversal on the Bruton issue, therefore, is required.

Mr. Justice Stevens,

with whom Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice Marshall join,

dissenting.

As Mr. Justice Blackmun makes clear, ante, at 77-78, proper analysis of this case requires that we differentiate between (1) a conclusion that there was no error under the rule of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, and (2) a conclusion that even if constitutional error was committed, the possibility that inadmissible evidence contributed to the conviction is so remote that we may characterize the error as harmless. Because Mr. Justice Blackmun properly rejects the first conclusion, my area of disagreement with him is narrow. In my view, but not in his, the concurrent findings of the District Court and the Court of Appeals that the error here was not harmless preclude this Court from reaching a different result on this kind of issue. E. g., Berenyi v. Immigration Director, 385 U. S. 630, 635; Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co., 336 U. S. 271, 275. But see opinion of Mr. Justice Blackmun, ante, at 80-81.

My area of disagreement with the plurality opinion is far wider and prompts more extended remarks. The plurality adopts the first conclusion above — that no constitutional error was committed when the confessions of all three respondents were admitted into evidence at their joint trial. Without purporting to modify the Bruton rule precluding the use of a nontestifying codefendant’s extrajudicial admissions against a defendant in a joint trial, the plurality reaches this conclusion by attempting to create a vaguely defined exception for cases in which there is evidence that the defendant has also made inculpatory statements which he does not repudiate at trial.

If ever adopted by the Court, such an exception would seriously undercut the Court’s decision in Bruton by limiting its effect to a small and arbitrarily selected class of cases. Indeed, its adoption would squarely overrule holdings in four decisions of this Court that applied the rule of Bruton.

Evidence that a defendant has made an “extrajudicial admission of guilt” which “stands before the jury unchallenged,” ante, at 74, 73, is not an acceptable reason for depriving him of his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him. In arguing to the contrary, and in striving “to cast the issue” presented “in a ... broader form” than any of the parties felt necessary to dispose of the case, ante, at 72, the plurality necessarily relies on two assumptions. Both are erroneous. First, it assumes that the jury’s ability to disregard a code-fendant’s inadmissible and highly prejudicial confession is invariably increased by the existence of a corroborating statement by the defendant. Second, it assumes that all unchallenged confessions by a defendant are equally reliable. Aside from two quotations from the dissent in Bruton, however, the plurality supports these assumptions with nothing more than the force of its own assertions. But the infinite variability of inculpatory statements (whether made by defendants or codefendants), and of their likely effect on juries, makes those assertions untenable. A hypothetical example is instructive.

Suppose a prosecutor has 10 items of' evidence tending to prove that defendant X and codefendant Y are guilty of assassinating a public figure. The first is the tape of a televised interview with Y describing in detail how he and X planned and executed the crime. Items 2 through 9 involve circumstantial evidence of a past association between X and Y, a shared hostility for the victim, and' an expressed wish for his early demise — evidence that in itself might very well be insufficient to convict X. Item 10 is the testimony of a drinking partner, a former cellmate, or a divorced spouse of X who vaguely recalls X saying that he had been with Y at the approximate time of the killing. Neither X nor Y takes the stand.

If Y’s televised confession were placed before the jury-while Y was immunized from cross-examination, it would undoubtedly have the “devastating” effect on X that the Bruton rule was designed to avoid. 391 U. S., at 128. As Mr. Justice Stewart’s characteristically concise explanation of the underlying rationale in that case demonstrates, it would also plainly violate X’s Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser. Nevertheless, under the plurality’s first remarkable assumption, the prejudice to X — and the violation of his constitutional right — would be entirely cured by the subsequent use of evidence of his own ambiguous statement. In my judgment, such dubious corroboration would enhance, rather than reduce, the danger that the jury would rely on Y’s televised confession when evaluating X’s guilt. See United States v. Bozza, 365 F. 2d 206, 215 (CA2 1966) (Friendly, J.), quoted in n. 13, infra. Even if I am wrong, however, there is no reason to conclude that the prosecutor’s reliance on item 10 would obviate the harm flowing from the use of item 1.

The dubiousness of X’s confession in this example — as in any case in which the defendant’s inculpatory statement is ambiguous, incomplete, the result of coercive influences, or simply the product of the well-recognized and often untrustworthy “urge to confess” — illustrates the inaccuracy of the plurality’s second crucial .assumption. It is no doubt true that in some cases a defendant’s confession will constitute such convincing evidence of his guilt that the violation of his constitutional rights is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. E. g., Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223; Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427. But in many cases, it is not so convincing. Moreover, such evidence is not inherently more incriminating or more reliable than other kinds of evidence such as fingerprints, photographs, or eyewitness testimony. Yet, if these types of corroboration are given the same absolute effect that the plurality would accord confessions, the Bruton rule would almost never apply.

I am also at a loss to understand the relevance of X’s failure to “challenge” his confession at trial. Ante, at 73. For there is nothing he could say or not say about his own alleged confession that would dispel the dramatically damning effect of Y’s. Furthermore, even apart from the general rule that a defendant should not be penalized for exercising one right (in this case the right not to take the stand or to introduce other evidence) by having another taken away (in this case the right to confront one’s accuser), e. g., United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570, it is unclear why X’s failure to repudiate it necessarily enhances the reliability of a self-impeaching “confession” such as the one hypothesized above. Cf. Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U. S. 333, 343-344 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

In. short, I see no logic to commend the proposed exception to the rule of Bruton save, perhaps, a purpose to limit the effect of that rule to the largely irrelevant set of facts in the case that announced it. If relevant at all in the present context, the factors relied on by the plurality support a proposition no one has even remotely advocated in this case— that the corroborated evidence used in this case was so trustworthy that it should have been fully admissible against all of the defendants, and the jury instructed as much. Conceivably, corroborating or other circumstances surrounding otherwise inadmissible hearsay may so enhance its reliability that its admission in evidence is justified in some situations. But before allowing such a rule to defeat a defendant’s fundamental right to confront his accusers, this Court surely should insist upon a strong showing not only of the reliability of the hearsay in the particular case but also of the impossibility, or at least difficulty, of making the accusers available for cross-examination. And, in most cases the prosecution will be hard pressed to make the latter showing in light of its ability to try the defendant and codefendant separately and to afford each immunity from the use against him of his testimony at the other’s trial. See Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441.

Absent admissibility of the codefendants’ confessions against respondents, therefore, the controlling question must be whether it is realistic to assume that the jury followed the judge’s instructions to disregard those confessions when it was evaluating respondents’ guilt. The plurality would answer this question affirmatively. But in so doing, it would repudiate much that has been said by the Court and by an impressive array of judicial and scholarly authorities who have addressed the issue.

As the plurality sees it, the answer to this question is supplied by the “crucial assumption underlying [the jury] system . . . that juries will follow the instructions given them by the trial judge.” Ante, at 73. This assumption, it is argued, has been applied in “numerous decisions of this Court” regarding codefendants’ confessions. Ante, at 74, and n. 6, citing Opper v. United States, 348 U. S. 84, and Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U. S. 539. But this reasoning was advanced just as forcefully in the case that Bruton overruled— a case, incidentally, that relied on the same “numerous” decisions that the plurality resurrects in favor of its analysis. See Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232, 242. What Bruton said in response to this reasoning — despite the plurality’s contrary assertions, see ante, at 70-73—is no less applicable in the present context:

“[Tjhere are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored. . . . Such a context is presented here, where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial. Not only are the incriminations devastating to the defendant but their credibility is inevitably suspect, a fact recognized when accomplices do take the stand and the jury is instructed to weigh their testimony carefully given the recognized motivation to shift blame onto others. The unreliability of such evidence is intolerably compounded when the alleged accomplice, as here, does not testify and cannot be tested by cross-examination. It was against such threats to a fair trial that the Confrontation Clause was directed.” 391 U. S., at 135-136 (citations and footnotes omitted).

Rather than falling back on once numerous but now discredited decisions, I prefer to stand by the observations about this sort of question by jurists like Felix Frankfurter, Learned Hand, Wiley Rutledge, Robert Jackson, and Henry Friendly, and by scholars like Wigmore and Morgan. In my judgment, as I think in theirs, the odds that a jury will obey a command to ignore a codefendant’s confessionwhether or not the defendant has himself confessed — are no less stacked against the defendant than was the deck of cards that William Douglas used to Robert Wood’s, and ultimately to his own, downfall in the game of chance arranged by Woppy Gaddy. In contests like this, the risk that one player may be confused with another is not insubstantial.

I respectfully dissent.

       As the Court of Appeals aptly commented: “This appeal involves a sequence of events which have the flavor of the old West before the law ever crossed the Pecos. The difference is that here there are no heroes and here there was a trial.” 575 F. 2d 1178, 1179 (CA6 1978).

       Tennessee Code Ann. §39-2402 (1975) provides in pertinent part as follows:
      “An' individual commits murder in the first degree if . . .
      “(4) he commits a willful, deliberate and malicious killing or murder during the perpetration of any arson, rape, robbery, burglary, larceny, kidnapping, aircraft piracy, or unlawful throwing, placing, or discharging of a destructive device or bomb.”

       Each of the confessions was subjected to a process of redaction in which references by the confessing defendant to other defendants were replaced with the words “blank” or “another person.” As the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit observed below, the confessions were nevertheless “such as to leave no possible doubt in the jurors’ minds concerning the (person[s]’ referred to.” 575 F. 2d, at 1180.

       The conflict extends throughout the Courts of Appeals. The Courts of Appeals for the Third and Sixth Circuits have expressly ruled that the Bruton rule applies in the context of interlocking confessions, see Hodges v. Rose, 570 F. 2d 643 (CA6 1978); United States v. DiGilio, 538 F. 2d 972, 981-983 (CA3 1976), cert. denied sub nom. Lupo v. United States, 429 U. S. 1038 (1977), and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has done so impliedly, see Ignacio v. Guam, 413 F. 2d 513, 515-516 (1969), cert. denied, 397 U. S. 943 (1970). In addition to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, at least four other Courts of Appeals have rejected the Bruton claims of confessing defendants. Cases frqm the Fifth and Seventh Circuits have reasoned that the Bruton rule does not apply in the context of interlocking confessions and that, even if it does, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Mack v. Maggio, 538 F. 2d 1129, 1130 (CA5 1976); United States v. Spinks, 470 F. 2d 64, 65-66 (CA7), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 1011 (1972). Two other Courts of Appeals have rejected the Bruton claims of confessing defendants, refusing to concern themselves “with the legal nicety as to whether the . . . case is 'without’ the Bruton rule, or is 'within’ Bruton [and] the violation thereof constitutes] only harmless error.” Metropolis v. Turner, 437 F. 2d 207, 208-209 (CA10 1971); accord, United States v. Walton, 538 F. 2d 1348, 1353— 1354 (CA8), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 1025 (1976). State-court decisions in this area are in similar disarray. Compare, e. g., Stewart v. State, 257 Ark. 753, 519 S. W. 2d 733 (1975), and People v. Moll, 26 N. Y. 2d 1, 256 N. E. 2d 185, cert. denied sub nom. Stanbridge v. New York, 398 U. S. 911 (1970), with People v. Rosochacki, 41 Ill. 2d 483, 244 N. E. 2d 136 (1969), and State v. Oliver, 160 Conn. 85, 273 A. 2d 867 (1970).

       In Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969), four defendants were found guilty of murder after a joint trial. Defendant Harrington’s extrajudicial statements placed him at the scene of the crime, but “fell short of a confession.” Id., at 252. His three codefendants, however, confessed, and their confessions were introduced at trial with the instruction that the jury was to consider each confession only against its source. One of Harrington’s codefendants, whose confession implicated Harrington, took the stand and was subject to cross-examination. The other two codefend-ants, whose statements corroborated Harrington's admitted presence at the scene of the crime, did not take the stand. Noting the overwhelming evidence of Harrington’s guilt, and the relatively insignificant prejudicial impact of his codefendants’ statements, the Court held that “the lack of opportunity to cross-examine [the non-testifying co-defendants] constituted harmless error under the rule of Chapman [v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967)].” Id., at 253.
      On two subsequent occasions, this Court has applied the harmless-error doctrine to claimed violations of Bruton. In Schneble v. Florida, 405 U. S. 427 (1972), Schneble and a codefendant were found guilty of murder following a joint trial. Although neither defendant took the stand, police officers were allowed to testify as to a detailed confession given by Schneble and a statement given by his codefendant which tended to corroborate certain portions of Schneble’s confession. We assumed, without deciding, that admission of the codefendant’s statement had violated Bruton, but held that in view of the overwhelming evidence of Schneble’s guilt and the comparatively insignificant impact of the codefendant’s statement, “any violation of Bruton that may have occurred at petitioner’s trial was harmless [error] beyond a reasonable doubt.” 405 U. S., at 428 (emphasis added).
      In Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223 (1973), the prosecution introduced police testimony regarding extrajudicial statements made by two nontestifying codefendants'. Each statement implicated both of the co-defendants in the crimes charged. Neither codefendant took the stand, and the police testimony was admitted into evidence at their joint trial. Because the Solicitor General conceded that the statements were admitted into evidence in violation of Bruton, we had no occasion to consider the question whether introduction of the interlocking confessions violated
        Bruton. Proceeding from the Solicitor General's concession, we held that the police testimony “was merely cumulative of other overwhelming and largely uncontroverted evidence properly before the jury.” 411 U. S., at 231. Thus, any Bruton error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

       In Opper v. United States, 348 U. S. 84 (1954), petitioner contended that the trial court had erred in overruling his motion for severance, arguing that the jury may have improperly considered statements of his co-defendant, which were inadmissible as to petitioner, in finding petitioner guilty. This Court rejected the contention:
      “It was within the sound discretion of the trial judge as to whether the defendants should be tried together or severally and there is nothing in the record to indicate an abuse of such discretion when petitioner’s motion for severance was overruled. The trial judge here made clear and repeated admonitions to the jury at appropriate times that Hollifield’s incriminatory statements were not to be considered in establishing the guilt of the petitioner. To say that the jury might have been confused amounts to nothing more than an unfounded speculation that the jurors disregarded clear instructions of the court in arriving at their verdict. Our theory of trial relies upon the ability of a jury to follow instructions. There is nothing in this record to call for reversal because of any confusion or injustice arising from the joint trial. The record contains substantial competent evidence upon which the jury could find petitioner guilty.” Id., at 95 (footnote omitted).
      See, e. g., Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U. S. 539, 552-553 (1947).

       Mr. Justice SteveNS characterizes our decision as an attempt “to create a vaguely defined exception” to the Bruton rule for eases involving interlocking confessions, post, at 82, and suggests that the “proposed exception” is designed “to limit the effect of [the Bruton] rule to the largely irrelevant set of facts in the case that announced it.” Post, at 87. First, the dissent describes what we believe to be the “rule” as the “exception.” The “rule” — indeed, the premise upon which the system of jury trials functions under the American judicial system — is that juries can be trusted to follow the trial court's instructions. Bruton was an exception to this rule, created because of the “devastating” consequences that failure of the jury to disregard a codefendant's inculpatory confession could have to a nonconfessing defendant’s case. We think it entirely reasonable to apply the general rule, and not the Bruton exception, when the defendant’s case has already been devastated by his own extrajudicial confession of guilt.
      Second, under the reasoning of Bruton, its facts were anything but “irrelevant” to its holding. The Bruton Court recognized:
      “[T]here are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored. . . . Such a context is presented here ....” 391 U. S., at 135.
      Clearly, Bruton was tied to the situation in which it arose: “where the powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant, who stands accused side-by-side with the defendant, are deliberately spread before the jury in a joint trial.” Id., at 135-136.

       Mr. Justice SteveNS, in dissent, states that our holding “squarely overrule[s]” this Court’s decisions in Roberts v. Russell, 392 U. S. 293 (1968); Hopper v. Louisiana, 392 U. S. 658 (1968); Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223 (1973); and Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969). “In all four of these cases,” according to the dissent, “the Court found a Bruton error even though the defendants’ confessions interlocked.” Post, at 83 n. 3. We disagree.
      We think that the dissent fails both to note significant factual distinctions between the present case and Roberts v. Russell, supra, and to recognize the difference in precedential value between decisions of this Court which have been fully argued and disposed of on their merits and unargued summary dispositions, a difference which we noted in Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 670-671 (1974). In Roberts “[t]he facts paralleled] the facts in Bruton.” 392 U. S., at 293. Petitioner was convicted of armed robbery after a joint trial in which a codefendant's confession inculpating petitioner was introduced through the testimony of a police officer. Petitioner’s cousin testified at trial that petitioner had “indicated that he thought . . . Tennessee was an easy place to commit a robbery.” App. to Brief in Opposition, O. T. 1967, No, 920, Misc., p. 4. This extrajudicial statement, while inculpatory, was by no stretch of the imagination a “confession.” The District Court denied petitioner’s application for a writ of habeas corpus, expressly relying on the authority of Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232 (1957), and the Court of Appeals affirmed. This Court subsequently overruled Delli Paoli in Bruton, and granted the petition for certiorari in Roberts to consider “the question whether Bruton [was] to be applied retroactively.” Roberts v. Russell, supra, at 293. The Court decided the question affirmatively, vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remanded the case to the District Court for further consideration in light of Bruton, in no way passing on the merits of petitioner’s Bruton claim. Thus, Roberts, contrary to the dissent’s reading, neither involved interlocking confessions nor “found a Bruton error.”

        Hopper v. Louisiana, supra, came to this Court in much the posture as Roberts. Petitioners’ manslaughter convictions were affirmed by the Louisiana Supreme Court when Delli Paoli was still good law, but while their petition for certiorari was pending before this Court, Bruton was decided. In a two-sentence summary disposition, this Court granted petitioners’ petition for certorari, vacated the judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and remanded the case “for further consideration in light of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, and Roberts v. Russell, [392 U. S.] 293.” 392 U. S., at 658. Not having passed on the merits of petitioners’ Bruton claim, this Court can hardly be said to have “found a Bruton error” in Hopper.

      The dissent, we believe, likewise misreads Harrington v. Califonia, supra, and Brown v. United States, supra, as our discussion of those cases in n. 5, supra, reveals.

       As Judge Edwards noted, writing for the Court of Appeals:
      “In evaluating the question of harmless error in this ease, it is important to point out the factors which might affect a jury’s verdict in relation to these three defendants in separate trials where the Bruton rule was observed:
      “1) Randolph, Pickens and Hamilton were not involved in the gambling game between Douglas, the Las Vegas gambler, and Robert Wood, the hometown gambler who got cheated.
      “2) They were not involved in originating the plan for recouping Robert Wood’s losses.
      “3) They were not in the room (and had not been) when Robert Wood killed Douglas.
      “4) Indeed, the jury could conclude from the admissible evidence in this case that when Joe Wood pulled out his pistol, the original plan for three ‘unknown’ blacks to rob the all-white poker game was aborted and that petitioners’ subsequent entry into the room did not involve them in the crime of murder.
      “Additionally, if we return to consideration of the joint trial, that jury as charged by the state court judge had the responsibility of determining whether or not any of the three confessions testified to by Memphis police was voluntarily given. Assuming that two of the three confessions had been removed from jury consciousness by adherence to Bruton, we find it impossible to conclude that the jury finding and ultimate verdict would, ‘beyond reasonable doubt/ have been the same.
      "These factors serve to distinguish this case from Harrington v. California, [395 U. S. 250,] and Schneble v. Florida, [405 U. S. 427,] and to convince us that the Bruton errors found by the District Judge cannot (as he also held) be determined to be harmless beyond reasonable doubt.” 575 F. 2d 1178, 1182-1183.

       As Mr. Justice BlacemuN points out, ante, at 78-79, it is unclear whether the plurality restricts its analysis to “interlocking” confessions, opinion of Mr. Justice RehNQUist, ante, at 75 (and, if so, what an “interlock” is), or whether a “broader” exception is established for all confessions. Ante, at 72. Indeed, its opinion does not explain how in-culpatory a statement must be before it qualifies as a “confession,” an “extrajudicial admission of guilt," or a “statement] . . . heaping blame onto [oneself].” Ante, at 73, 74. Moreover, the plurality variously states its test as applicable “when [ever] the incriminated defendant has [once] admitted his own guilt” (i. e., whenever he has not “maintained his innocence from the beginning”), or only when he has once confessed and has left his “admission of guilt . . . before the jury unchallenged” by any evidence of its invalidity. Ante, at 72, 73.

       In Roberts v. Russell, 392 U. S. 293, petitioner and a eodefendant were jointly tried and convicted of armed robbery, to which the eode-fendant had confessed, implicating petitioner. In addition, petitioner’s cousin testified that petitioner made certain inculpatory statements to him concerning the robbery — statements that the State Supreme Court relied upon heavily in upholding the jury finding of petitioner’s guilt. App. to Brief in Opposition, O. T. 1967, No. 920, Misc., pp. 4, 6. That court also held that the redaction of the codefendant’s confession to omit the references to petitioner as well as a cautionary instruction to the jury to consider the confession as evidence against the codefendant alone was sufficient to avoid any problem under the Confrontation Clause. On habeas corpus, the District Court and the Court of Appeals agreed. This Court granted the writ of certiorari and summarily vacated the conviction and remanded for reconsideration in light of Bruton. In so doing, it established both that the Bruton rule applied to the States and that it was retroactive. 392 U. S., at 294-295.
      Similarly, in Hopper v. Louisiana, 392 U. S. 658, the Court vacated the convictions of two defendants both of whom had made full confessions that were introduced at their joint trial with the usual cautionary instructions. See 251 La. 77, 104, 203 So. 2d 222, 232-233 (1967). On remand, the Louisiana Supreme Court held that the Bruton errors as to both defendants were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the overwhelming untainted evidence inculpating both, 253 La. 439, 218 So. 2d 551 (1969), and this Court denied certiorari. 396 U. S. 1012.
      In two subsequent decisions, the Court held that error had been committed under the rule of Bruton, although it found the error to be harmless. Brown v. United States, 411 U. S. 223, 230-231; Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250, 254. In all four of these cases the Court found a Bruton error even though the defendants’ confessions interlocked.
      The plurality’s analysis is also inconsistent with almost half of the lower federal and state court opinions relied on in Bruton in support of its reasoning. 391 U. S., at 129, 135, and nn. 4, 8, 9. In 6 of the 14 cases cited there, the defendant as well as the codefendant had confessed. See United States ex rel. Floyd v. Wilkins, 367 F. 2d 990 (CA2 1966); Greenwell v. United States, 119 U. S. App. D. C. 43, 336 F. 2d 962 (1964); Barton v. United States, 263 F. 2d 894 (CA5 1959); United States ex rel. Hill
        v. Deegan, 268 F. Supp. 680 (SDNY 1967); People v. Barbaro, 395 Ill. 264, 69 N. E. 2d 692 (1946); People v. Fisher, 249 N. Y. 419, 432, 164 N. E. 336, 341 (1928) (Lehman, J., dissenting).

       The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him

       “I think it clear that the underlying rationale of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause precludes reliance upon cautionary instructions when the highly damaging out-of-court statement of a codefendant, who is not subject to cross-examination, is deliberately placed before the jury at a joint trial. A basic premise of the Confrontation Clause, it seems to me, is that certain kinds of hearsay (see, e. g., Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400; Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415) are at once so damaging, so suspect, and yet so difficult to discount, that jurors cannot be trusted to give such evidence the minimal weight it logically deserves, whatever instructions the trial judge might give. See the Court’s opinion, [391 U. S.,] at 136 n. 12. It is for this very reason that an out-of-court accusation is universally conceded to be constitutionally inadmissible against the accused, rather than admissible for the little it may be worth.” 391 U. S., at 137-138 (Stewart, J., concurring).

         E. g., Foster, Confessions and the Station House Syndrome, 18 DePaul L. Eev. 683 (1969); Sterling, Police Interrogation and the Psychology of Confession, 14 J. Pub. L. 25 (1965). See generally T. Reik, The Compulsion to Confess 267 (1959).

       Indeed, George Bruton was identified at trial as the perpetrator by an eyewitness to the robbery. App. in Bruton v. United States, O. T. 1967, No. 705, p. 70.

       Cf. Fed. Rule Evid. 804 (b) (3) (“A statement tending to expose the declarant to criminal liability and offered to exculpate the accused is not admissible unless corroborating circumstances clearly indicate the trustworthiness of the statement”); Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U. S. 284.

       See Berger v. California, 393 U. S. 314; Barber v. Page, 390 U. S. 719; Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400; Motes v. United States, 178 U. S. 458; Rule 804 (b), supra n. 8. See generally Westen, Confrontation and Compulsory Process: A Unified Theory of Evidence for Criminal Cases, 91 Harv. L. Rev. 567, 582-586, and n. 43 (1978).

       In his dissenting opinion in Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U. S. 232, Mr. Justice Frankfurter commented on the recurring difficulties arising in the trial of two or more persons accused of collaborating in a criminal enterprise when incriminating declarations by one or more of the defendants are not admissible against others. He observed:
      “The dilemma is usually resolved by admitting such evidence against the declarant but cautioning the jury against its use in determining the guilt of the others. The fact of the matter is that too often such admonition against misuse is intrinsically ineffective in that the effect of such a nonadmissible declaration cannot be wiped from the brains of the jurors. The admonition therefore becomes a futile collocation of words and fails of its purpose as a legal protection to defendants against whom such a declaration should not tell. While enforcing the rule of admitting the declaration solely against a declarant and admonishing the jury not to consider it against other defendants, Judge Learned Hand, in a series of cases, has recognized the psychological feat that this solution of the dilemma demands of juries. He thus stated the problem:
      “ 'In effect, however, the rule probably furthers, rather than impedes, the search for truth, and this perhaps excuses the device which satisfies form while it violates substance; that is, the recommendation to the jury of a mental gymnastic which is beyond, not only their powers, but anybody else’s.’ Nash v. United States, 54 F. 2d 1006, 1007.
      “. . . The Government should not have the windfall of having the jury be influenced by evidence against a defendant which, as a matter of law, they should not consider but which they cannot put out of their minds.” Id., at 247-248.

       Writing for the Court in Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U. S. 539, 559-560, Mr. Justice Rutledge said:
      “The grave danger in this case, if any, arose not from the trial court’s rulings upon admissibility or from its instructions to the jury. As we have said, these were as adequate as might reasonably be required in a joint trial. The danger rested rather in the risk that the jury, in disregard of the court’s direction, would transfer, consciously or unconsciously, the effect of the excluded admissions from the case as made against Goldsmith and Weiss across the barrier of the exclusion to the other three defendants.
      “That danger was real. It is one likely to arise in any conspiracy trial and more likely to occur as the number of persons charged together increases. Perhaps even at best the safeguards provided by clear rulings on admissibility, limitations of the bearing of evidence as against particular individuals, and adequate instructions, are insufficient to ward off the danger entirely. It is therefore extremely important that those safeguards be made as impregnable as possible.”

       Referring to the passage quoted from Blumenthal in the preceding footnote, Mr. Justice Jackson made his frequently quoted observation: “The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury, cf. Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U. S. 539, 559, all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction.” Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440, 453 (concurring opinion).

       “Not even appellate judges can be expected to be so naive as really to believe that all twelve jurors succeeded in performing what Judge L. Hand aptly called 'a mental gymnastic which is beyond, not only their powers, but anybody’s else.’ Nash v. United States, 54 F. 2d 1006, 1007 (2 Cir. 1932). It is impossible realistically to suppose that when the twelve good men and women had [the codefendant’s] confession in the privacy of the jury room, not one yielded to the nigh irresistible temptation to fill in the blanks [caused by the redaction of the defendants’ names] with the keys [the other evidence] provided and [to] ask himself the intelligent question to what extent Jones’ statement supported [that evidence], or that if anyone did yield, his colleagues effectively persuaded him to dismiss the answers from his mind.” United States v. Bozza, 365 F. 2d 206, 215.

       See 8 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2272, p. 416 (3d ed. 1940); E. Morgan, Some Problems of Proof Under the Anglo-American System of Litigation 105 (1956).

       Indeed, the judge’s command to ignore the confession may well assure that any juror who happened to miss the connection to the defendant at first will nonetheless have made it by the time he enters the jury room. Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U. S. 333, 345 (Stevens, J., dissenting).