In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), a witness testified that Bruton's co-defendant, Evans, had confessed that he and Bruton had committed an armed robbery. Id. at 124. The trial judge instructed the jury that Evans' confession was inadmissible against Bruton. Id. at 125. The United States Supreme Court reversed Bruton's conviction, holding that, despite the limiting instruction, the introduction of Evans' confession violated Bruton's Sixth Amendment right to cross-examine witnesses. Id. at 126. The Court concluded that while the jury is generally expected to follow instructions given by the court, "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." Id. at 135. Evans' confession had been found not to be admissible even against Evans himself. Bruton, 391 U.S. at 124 n.1. This "concededly unconstitutional confession," id., thus clearly should not have been introduced as evidence against Bruton because it could not be used against him. Since the confession was admissible against neither defendant, it should not have been introduced at trial. Indeed, the Solicitor General confessed error on this point. 391 U.S. at 125. The United States Supreme Court held that the admission of a non-testifying co-defendant's confession, which clearly implicated another defendant at a joint trial, was a violation of that defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause, and noted that the non-testifying co-defendant's confession "added substantial, perhaps even critical, weight to the Government's case in a form not subject to cross-examination, since the co-defendant did not take the stand." Id. at 128. The rationale was that a co-defendant's confession that implicates another defendant is both "devastating to the defendant" and inherently untrustworthy "given the recognized motivation to shift blame onto others." Id. at 136. The Supreme Court held a defendant's Sixth Amendment right of confrontation is violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession that also implicates his or her codefendants. ( Bruton v. United States, supra, 391 U.S. at pp. 135-136.) Almost 20 years later, the high court limited Bruton by holding that trial courts may avoid a confrontation violation by redacting the nontestifying defendant's confession "to eliminate not only the defendant's name, but any reference to his or her existence," even if the confession incriminates his or her codefendants when considered with other evidence. ( Richardson v. Marsh (1987) 481 U.S. 200, 211.) In such circumstances, the court's instruction to restrict consideration of the nontestifying defendant's statement to his or her own case is deemed sufficient protection. ( Id. at p. 208.) "While Bruton required that the admission be 'powerfully' incriminating, Richardson required that it also be 'incriminating on its face . . . .'" (People v. Archer, 82 Cal.App.4th at p. 1386.) The United States Supreme Court held a codefendant's extrajudicial confession so incriminated a jointly tried defendant that its introduction into evidence insulated from cross-examination violated the nondeclarant defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses against him. Codefendants Evans and Bruton were tried jointly and convicted of armed postal robbery. A postal inspector testified Evans confessed he and Bruton had committed the crime. The trial court instructed the jury Evans's confession was admissible against him but could not be considered in assessing Bruton's guilt. The Supreme Court held introduction of Evans's confession posed such a serious threat to Bruton's right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him he was entitled to a new trial. The Court explained, "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 . . . . The unreliability of such evidence is intolerably compounded when the alleged accomplice, as here, does not testify and cannot be tested by cross-examination." (Bruton, supra, 391 U.S. at pp. 135-136.) The Court held that the introduction of a confession of a defendant that implicates a codefendant violates the codefendant's constitutional right of cross-examination even if the jury is instructed to disregard the confession in determining the codefendant's guilt or innocence. (Id. at p. 137 20 L.Ed.2d at p. 485.) The court recognized that "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," that "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." (Id. at pp. 135-136 20 L.Ed.2d at pp. 484-485.) The Court held that a defendant's constitutional right to confrontation of the witnesses against him is violated by admitting the confession of a nontestifying codefendant that names and incriminates the defendant. This is so even though the jury is instructed to disregard the confession in determining the nondeclarant defendant's guilt or innocence. (Bruton, supra, 391 U.S. at pp. 135-137.) In Bruton, the United States Supreme Court held that a confrontation clause violation under the Sixth Amendment occurs when the trial court admits a nontestifying codefendant's confession that names and incriminates the defendant at their joint trial, even where the jury is instructed to consider the confession only against the codefendant. (Bruton, supra, 391 U.S. at pp. 124-126, 135-136.) The Supreme Court reasoned that, even when so instructed, jurors cannot be expected to ignore the statements of one defendant that are "powerfully incriminating" as to another defendant. (Id. at pp. 135-136.) Bruton's scope was limited in Richardson v. Marsh (1987) 481 U.S. 200, where the court held that, when a nontestifying codefendant's confession is redacted so that it does not facially incriminate the defendant, the admission of the statement with a proper limiting instruction will not violate the confrontation clause. (Id. at pp. 207-208, 211.) Richardson distinguished the confession in that case from the confession in Bruton: "In Bruton, the codefendant's confession 'expressly implicated' the defendant as his accomplice. Thus, at the time that confession was introduced there was not the slightest doubt that it would prove 'powerfully incriminating.' By contrast, in this case the confession was not incriminating on its face, and became so only when linked with evidence introduced later at trial (the defendant's own testimony)." (Richardson v. Marsh, supra, 481 U.S. at p. 208,.) Under such circumstances, the court could properly presume that jurors would follow a limiting instruction not to consider the confession against the defendant, even if the confession incriminated the defendant when considered in connection with other evidence. (Id. at pp. 201-202, 208.)The Court ruled that a defendant's right of cross-examination secured by the confrontation clause of the Sixth Amendment is violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession implicating the defendant, even though the jury is instructed to disregard the confession in determining the defendant's guilt or innocence. The court explained that "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." ( Id. at pp. 135-136.)