Johnson v. Tennis

OPINION OF THE COURT

ALDISERT, Circuit Judge.

This appeal by Gary Johnson from the denial of his petition for habeas corpus by the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania requires us to decide an issue of first impression in this Circuit: Do the teachings of Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), apply to a bench trial in a criminal proceeding? Bruton and its progeny established that in a joint criminal trial before a jury, a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right of confrontation is violated by admitting a confession of a non-testifying…