Schneble v. Florida

Schneble v. Florida

Opinion

 [*427]   [***343]   [**1057]  MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

 Petitioner Schneble and his codefendant Snell were tried jointly in a Florida state court for murder. At the trial neither defendant took the stand, but police  [*428]  witnesses testified to certain admissions made by each defendant implicating both of them in the murder. Both defendants were convicted, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed. This Court vacated and remanded the case for further consideration in the light of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123  [**1058]  (1968). Schneble v. Florida, 392 U.S. 298 (1968). Upon remand, the Supreme Court of Florida reversed Snell's conviction, finding that it had been obtained in violation of Bruton, but affirmed petitioner's conviction. We again granted certiorari,  [****3]  limited ¹ to the question of whether petitioner's conviction had been obtained in violation of the Bruton rule. In the circumstances of this case, we find that any violation of Bruton that may have occurred at petitioner's trial was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We therefore affirm.

The State's case showed that a threesome consisting of petitioner, Snell, and the victim, Mrs. Maxine Collier, left New Orleans in a borrowed automobile en route to Florida. While they were traveling across the Florida Panhandle, Mrs. Collier was murdered, and her body placed [****4]  in the trunk of the automobile. The body was then transported in the car to the environs of Tampa, where it was left behind some bushes in a trash dump. Petitioner and Snell then continued their odyssey southward to the Florida Keys, and thence north along the east coast of Florida. They were apprehended for unrelated offenses in West Palm Beach, but upon discovering blood in the trunk of the car police officers there  [*429]  commenced the investigation that ultimately led to the charging of petitioner and Snell with the murder of Mrs. Collier.

The investigating officers testified at the trial that petitioner initially, while admitting knowledge of the murder, claimed that Snell had shot Mrs. Collier while petitioner was away from the car taking a walk. Petitioner later conceded, however, that his earlier story was false. He admitted to the police that it was he who had strangled Mrs. Collier, and that Snell had finally shot her in the head as she lay dying. The state court held these admissions of petitioner to be voluntary and admissible. Since our grant of certiorari here was limited to the Bruton issue, our treatment of that question assumes that these admissions [****5]  were properly before the trial court.

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