Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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, were 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 Government 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 testifying on his own behalf and the full confession implicated Samia, the Government proposed that the confession be introduced through the testimony of a DEA agent, who would testify to the content of Still- well’s confession in a way that eliminated Samia’s name while avoid- ing any obvious indications of redaction. The District Court granted the Government’s motion with additional alterations to conform to its understanding 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 prop- erties 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 testified 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 confes- sion used the “other person” descriptor to refer to someone with whom Stillwell had traveled and lived and who carried a particular firearm. Both before the agent’s testimony and again prior to deliberations, the District Court instructed the jury that the agent’s testimony about Stillwell’s confession was admissible only as to Stillwell and should not 2 SAMIA v. UNITED STATES

Syllabus

be considered as to Samia or Hunter. Samia and his codefendants were convicted on all counts. On appeal, Samia argued that the ad- mission 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 Second Circuit, pointing to the established practice of replacing a defendant’s name with a neutral noun or pronoun in a nontestifying codefendant’s confession, held that the admission of Stillwell’s confes- sion 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. 5– 17. (a) Stillwell’s formal, Mirandized confession to authorities is testi- monial and thus falls within the ambit of the Sixth Amendment’s Con- frontation Clause, which forbids the introduction of out-of-court “testi- monial” statements unless the witness is unavailable and the defendant has had the c