People of Michigan v. Carl Rene Bruner II

**223 In this case we consider whether the admission at a joint trial with a single jury of an unavailable witness's prior testimony about a codefendant's confession violated the defendant's constitutional right to confrontation, notwithstanding the redaction of the defendant's name and the reading of a limiting instruction to the jury. It did. The defendant had no opportunity to cross-examine the witness, and because the substance of the witness's testimony-the codefendant's confession that implicated the defendant-was so powerfully incriminating, the limiting instruction and redaction were…