Background
A jury convicted Ausarian Carney and his sister, Ademeko Maclin-Carney, of kidnapping businessman Ed Good. Good testified that Maclin-Carney lured him to a Decatur, Illinois, property by requesting a flooring estimate, where she pepper-sprayed him and a masked man held him at gunpoint. The kidnappers restrained Good, took him to another house, and forced him to demand a $400,000 ransom from his wife. After Good’s wife contacted police, the male kidnapper moved Good to an abandoned minivan and released him.
At the joint trial, prosecutors introduced jail letters in which Maclin-Carney asked relatives to support a false alibi for herself and Carney. The district court excluded one particularly prejudicial statement but admitted the remaining letters without an objection from Carney’s counsel. The jury convicted both siblings. The court sentenced Maclin-Carney to 30 years and Carney to 24 years, slightly below Carney’s advisory Guidelines minimum of 292 months.
Carney appealed, arguing for the first time that admitting his non-testifying sister’s letters violated the Confrontation Clause under Bruton v. United States. He also challenged his sentence as procedurally and substantively unreasonable.
The Court’s Holding
The Seventh Circuit affirmed the conviction under plain-error review. Without deciding whether admitting the letters was a clear Confrontation Clause violation—or whether Bruton applies after Crawford v. Washington to non-testimonial statements—the court held that Carney could not show the alleged error affected his substantial rights. Independent evidence of guilt was overwhelming, including Carney’s fingerprints on objects recovered from the kidnapping scene and Good’s car, a ski mask found beside Carney, vehicle damage matching debris at the crime scene, and cellphone-location and call evidence connecting Carney to the kidnapping.
The court also concluded that the alleged error did not seriously undermine the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of the proceeding. Carney’s counsel had not objected, and the circumstances suggested that the omission could have reflected trial strategy. The court declined to consider a Rule 403 theory that Carney never raised and deemed waived a separate hearsay argument first presented in his reply brief.
The court rejected Carney’s sentencing challenges as well. The district court meaningfully considered his lesser role, his decision to spare Good’s life, and evidence of remorse, crediting those factors by imposing a sentence six years shorter than his sister’s and below the Guidelines range. Its reference to Carney’s absence from trial merely explained why his remorse was difficult to assess and did not improperly punish him. The below-Guidelines sentence was not an abuse of discretion.
Key Takeaways
- An unpreserved Confrontation Clause claim cannot justify reversal on plain-error review when overwhelming independent evidence leaves no reasonable probability of a different verdict.
- The Seventh Circuit did not decide whether Bruton applies only to testimonial statements after Crawford, leaving that circuit-level question unresolved.
- Arguments omitted from the opening appellate brief—including a hearsay challenge raised only in reply—are waived, and courts will not construct an unasserted Rule 403 argument for a party.
- A sentencing court need not address every supporting fact individually when the record shows that it meaningfully considered the defendant’s principal mitigation arguments.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the formidable burden defendants face when raising Confrontation Clause objections for the first time on appeal. Even where a codefendant’s out-of-court statements arguably implicate Bruton, overwhelming evidence of guilt and counsel’s failure to object may prevent relief under the third and fourth requirements of plain-error review.
The opinion also preserves an open question in the Seventh Circuit: whether Bruton’s protections are limited after Crawford to testimonial statements. For sentencing practitioners, it confirms that a concise but demonstrably meaningful discussion of mitigation can satisfy procedural requirements, particularly when the sentence imposed reflects that the court credited the defendant’s arguments.