Volume 599 U. S. Part 1 Pages 635–669

OFFICIAL REPORTS OF

THE SUPREME COURT June 23, 2023

Page Proof Pending Publication

REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions

NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. OCTOBER TERM, 2022 635

Syllabus

SAMIA, aka SAMIC v. UNITED STATES certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit No. 22–196. Argued March 29, 2023—Decided June 23, 2023 Petitioner Adam Samia, along with Joseph Hunter and Carl Stillwell, was arrested by the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration and charged with a variety of offenses related to the murder-for-hire of Catherine Lee, a real-estate broker. The Government tried all three defendants jointly in the Southern District of New York. Prior to trial, the Gov- ernment moved to admit Stillwell's postarrest confession in which he admitted that he had been in the van in which Lee was killed, but he claimed that Samia had shot Lee. Since Stillwell would not be testify- ing on his own behalf and the full confession implicated Samia, the Gov- ernment proposed that the confession be introduced through the testi- mony of a DEA agent, who would testify to the content of Stillwell's confession in a way that eliminated Samia's name while avoiding any obvious indications of redaction. The District Court granted the Gov- Page Proof Pending Publication ernment's motion with additional alterations to conform to its under- standing of this Court's Confrontation Clause precedents. At trial, the Government's theory of the case was that Hunter had hired Samia and Stillwell to pose as real-estate buyers and visit proper- ties with Lee and that Samia, Stillwell, and Lee were in a van driven by Stillwell when Samia shot Lee. As part of the Government's case in chief, a DEA agent testifed that Stillwell had confessed to “a time when the other person he was with pulled the trigger on that woman in a van that he and Mr. Stillwell was driving.” (Emphasis added.) Other portions of the agent's testimony recounting Stillwell's confession used the “other person” descriptor to refer to someone with whom Still- well had traveled and lived and who carried a particular frearm. Both before the agent's testimony and again prior to deliberations, the Dis- trict Court instructed the jury that the agent's testimony about Still- well's confession was admissible only as to Stillwell and should not be considered as to Samia or Hunter. Samia and his codefendants were convicted on all counts. On appeal, Samia argued that the admission of Stillwell's confession was constitutional error because other evidence and statements at trial enabled the jury to immediately infer that the “other person” described in the confession was Samia himself. The Sec- ond Circuit, pointing to the established practice of replacing a defend- ant's name with a neutral noun or pronoun in a nontestifying codefend- 636 SAMIA v. UNITED STATES

Syllabus

ant's confession, held that the admission of Stillwell's confession did not violate Samia's Confrontation Clause rights. Held: The Confrontation Clause was not violated by the admission of a nontestifying codefendant's confession that did not directly inculpate the defendant and was subject to a proper limiting instruction. Pp. 643–655. (a) Stillwell's formal, Mirandized confession to authorities is testimo- nia