Rule 105. Limiting Evidence That is Not Admissible Against Other Parties or for Other Purposes

If the court admits evidence that is admissible against a party or for a purpose—but not against another party or for another purpose—the court, on timely request, must restrict the evidence to its proper scope and instruct the jury accordingly. In a criminal case tried to a jury, evidence inadmissible as to one defendant must not be admitted as to other defendants unless all references to the defendant as to whom it is inadmissible have been effectively deleted.

Committee Notes

Maine Restyling Note [November 2014] The language of the first sentence of Maine Rule 105 is identical to Federal Rule 105. Maine's second sentence is to implement Maine's version of the holding in Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 126 (1968), which has been carried over into the restyled Rules.

Federal Advisory Committee Note The language of Rule 105 has been amended as part of the restyling of the Evidence Rules to make them more easily understood and to make style and terminology consistent throughout the rules. These changes are intended to be stylistic only. There is no intent to change any result in any ruling on evidence admissibility.

Advisers' Note to former M.R. Evid. 105 (February 2, 1976) This rule accepts for civil cases the long-standing practice of instructing the jury to consider evidence only on a particular issue or with reference to a particular party even though it has an obvious and perhaps a highly prejudicial bearing on some other issue or party. In criminal cases, however, the ineffectiveness of such a limiting instruction is recognized. In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620 (1968), the Court held that the constitutional right of confrontation forbids the use in a joint trial of an oral confession of one codefendant expressly implicating the other when the confessing codefendant does not take the stand and subject himself to crossexamination. The Court concluded that a jury would be unable to put out of mind "powerfully incriminating extrajudicial statements of a codefendant." Long before Bruton, M.R.Crim.P. 14 authorized severance when it appeared that a defendant might be prejudiced by a joint trial. Bruton emphasizes that this potential for prejudice has constitutional force. The rule therefore compels the state to choose between severance and foregoing use of evidence admissible as to fewer than all defendants, with the single qualification that a statement may be admitted in a joint trial if all references to the defendant against whom it is inadmissible have been effectively deleted. This qualification is recognized in Maine. State v. Wing, 294 A.2d 418 (Me. 1972). It will often be apparent that effective deletion is impossible, in which case severance will be necessary. The last sentence is not in the Federal Rule. For the reasons already stated, its inclusion seems called for by proper respect for the Bruton rule.