Also known as: harmless error · harmless-error standard · harmless errors · harmless error rule · harmless error doctrine
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
2 senses
A rule excusing defects in the formal execution of a will when the proponent proves by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent intended the document to operate as a will. The rule focuses on whether the overall conduct of the testator demonstrates adoption of the instrument rather than on literal compliance with each statutory formality.
A rule excusing defects in the formal execution of a will when the proponent proves by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent intended the document to operate as a will. The rule focuses on whether the overall conduct of the testator demonstrates adoption of the instrument rather than on literal compliance with each statutory formality.
Hunter Hughes printed his will in the hospital and began signing his name while two nurses watched. He completed only the first letters before losing consciousness and died minutes later. The nurses signed the document the next day. The court admitted the will to probate after finding clear and convincing evidence that Hughes had adopted the instrument as his will despite the incomplete signature.
A standard of appellate review that requires a court to disregard any error or defect that does not affect substantial rights. Under the standard a conviction stands unless the government fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict.
Hamid Hassan and a codefendant were tried together for armed robbery. The prosecution introduced the codefendant's confession that implicated Hassan. The trial court failed to give a limiting instruction. On appeal the court held the error harmless because the remaining eyewitness testimony and physical evidence established Hassan's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
A standard of appellate review that requires a court to disregard any error or defect that does not affect substantial rights. Under the standard a conviction stands unless the government fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict.
Each sense below has its own examples, sources, and questions.
1 common questions
Yes. Under the modern rule a defect in execution is excused when the proponent establishes by clear and convincing evidence that the decedent adopted the document as a will. The inquiry examines the testator's overall conduct rather than isolated formalities.
In June 1966, petitioner George William Bruton and codefendant Evans were jointly tried before a jury in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. They faced a federal charge of armed postal robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2114. A postal inspector testified that during two interrogations at the St. Louis city jail on April 11 and May 4, 1966, Evans orally confessed that he and Bruton had committed the robbery and that Evans had an accomplice whom he would not name. The interrogations followed an April 8 confession Evans gave to local police officers without warnings while held on state charges. Both defendants appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. That court set aside Evans’ conviction on the ground that his oral confessions should not have been received in evidence against him. However, the court affirmed Bruton’s conviction because the trial judge had instructed the jury that Evans’ confession was competent evidence only against Evans and inadmissible hearsay against Bruton. The Supreme Court granted certiorari. The trial had begun one week after Miranda v. Arizona, and the Court of Appeals applied that decision to hold the confessions tainted. On retrial Evans was acquitted. The Solicitor General later submitted a memorandum stating that in light of the record the judgment as to Bruton should be reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.
View caseHector Huerta was prosecuted for tax evasion. The prosecutor asked the jury to infer guilt from Huerta's decision not to testify. The trial court sustained an objection and instructed the jury to disregard the remark. The appellate court affirmed the conviction because the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the single comment did not contribute to the verdict.
Ruth Elizabeth Chapman and Thomas LeRoy Teale were convicted in a California state court upon a charge that they robbed, kidnaped, and murdered a bartender. Chapman was sentenced to life imprisonment and Teale to death. At trial both petitioners chose not to testify. The prosecutor took full advantage of a provision in the California Constitution allowing comment on a defendant's failure to testify, filling his argument to the jury from beginning to end with numerous references to their silence and inferences of guilt. The trial court also charged the jury that it could draw adverse inferences from petitioners' failure to testify. The trial took place before this Court decided Griffin v. California. On appeal the California Supreme Court acknowledged that petitioners had been denied a federal constitutional right by the comments on their silence but affirmed applying the State's harmless-error provision. The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to these questions: where there is a violation of the rule of Griffin v. California, can the error be held to be harmless, and if so, was the error harmless in this case.
View caseHugo Hart was charged with burglary. At trial the prosecutor asked Hart why he had remained silent after receiving Miranda warnings. Defense counsel objected and the court sustained the objection. The court of appeals found the error harmless because the remaining fingerprint and eyewitness evidence overwhelmingly proved guilt.
Petitioners Jefferson Doyle and Richard Wood were arrested together in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and charged with selling ten pounds of marijuana to William Bonnell, an informant working with the local narcotics unit. The evidence presented at their separate trials, held about one week apart in the Common Pleas Court, was identical in all material respects. Narcotics agents had arranged with Bonnell to set up a purchase using $1,320 collected from the unit, which Bonnell took to a bar in Dover, Ohio, where he met the petitioners. Subsequently, Doyle obtained the marijuana and met Bonnell and Wood at a parking lot in New Philadelphia, Ohio, where the transaction occurred under surveillance by four agents. After discovering they had been paid $430 less than agreed, Doyle and Wood chased Bonnell but were stopped by local police acting on instructions from the agents. Agent Kenneth Beamer arrived, arrested both petitioners, and administered Miranda warnings before a search of the car uncovered the $1,320. At trial, each petitioner testified that Bonnell had framed them by attempting to sell the marijuana to Doyle, who had changed his mind about the quantity, leading Bonnell to throw the money into the car and take the drugs back. During cross-examination, the prosecutor in each trial asked why the petitioner had not told this story to Agent Beamer at the time of arrest, and the trial court overruled defense objections to these questions. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth District affirmed the convictions, and the Supreme Court of Ohio denied further review before the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseHilda Hernandez was convicted of robbery after an in-court identification. The prosecution had introduced testimony about a pretrial lineup conducted without counsel. The appellate court applied harmless-error review and upheld the conviction because independent evidence from two other eyewitnesses and recovered property established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
In January 1964 two armed men robbed the Mutual Savings and Loan Association of Alhambra and a police officer who entered during the robbery was killed. Petitioner Gilbert was convicted in the Superior Court of California of the armed robbery and the murder. There were separate guilt and penalty stages of the trial before the same jury, which rendered a guilty verdict and imposed the death penalty. The California Supreme Court affirmed the judgment. Gilbert was arrested in Philadelphia by an FBI agent and later provided handwriting exemplars to another agent during questioning about Philadelphia robberies in which the robber used a handwritten note. The exemplars were admitted in evidence at his California trial over objection. Officers entered Gilbert's apartment without a search warrant after receiving information from an accomplice that led them to believe a suspect might be inside. They found and seized photographs of Gilbert in an envelope on the top of a bedroom dresser. Eyewitnesses viewed the photographs within hours after the crime. Sixteen days after his indictment and the appointment of counsel, Gilbert was exhibited at a lineup conducted without notice to his counsel in a Los Angeles auditorium. Three eyewitnesses to the Alhambra crimes who identified Gilbert at the guilt stage had observed him at the lineup. The manager of the apartment house in which incriminating evidence was found also identified Gilbert in the courtroom and testified to her prior lineup identification. Eight witnesses at the penalty stage who were not eyewitnesses to the Alhambra crimes but to other robberies allegedly committed by Gilbert likewise identified him both in court and at the same lineup. The California Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 63 Cal. 2d 690. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and set the case for argument with related matters.
View caseHenry Harrison was convicted of murder. On appeal he challenged the admission of certain hearsay statements. The reviewing court held that even if the statements were improperly admitted the remaining evidence of guilt was sufficient for any rational trier of fact to find the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt.
On July 29, 1972, the body of Mary Houston Cole was discovered in a secluded church parking lot in Chesterfield County, Virginia. She had been shot twice at close range with a .38-caliber pistol. The victim had last been seen alive the previous evening in the company of petitioner Hugh Jackson, who was carrying a .38-caliber pistol. Jackson had befriended Cole while he was imprisoned on a disorderly conduct charge at the local county jail. After his release she arranged for him to live in the home of her son and daughter-in-law. On the day of the killing Jackson had been drinking and had spent considerable time shooting at targets with his revolver. Late in the afternoon he unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Cole to drive him to North Carolina. She instead drove him to a local diner where both were observed by several police officers. A deputy sheriff later observed Jackson and Cole preparing to leave the diner in her car. Jackson was in possession of his revolver and a kitchen knife was visible in the vehicle. Cole's body was found the following day and a half later, naked from the waist down with her slacks beneath her body. Six cartridge cases fired from Jackson's gun were recovered nearby. Jackson drove the victim's car to North Carolina, made a short trip to Florida, and was arrested several days later. In a post-arrest statement introduced at trial, Jackson admitted shooting Cole but claimed the shooting occurred accidentally during a struggle. He said the victim had attacked him with a knife when he resisted her sexual advances. He stated he had first fired warning shots into the ground and reloaded before the fatal shots. At trial he asserted self-defense or, alternatively, that intoxication had prevented him from forming the specific intent required for first-degree murder under Virginia law. The trial judge, sitting as factfinder, convicted Jackson of first-degree murder and sentenced him to thirty years in prison. Jackson's motion to set aside the judgment was denied. The Virginia Supreme Court denied his petition for a writ of error alleging insufficient evidence. Jackson then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The District Court applied the Thompson v. Louisville no-evidence standard and granted relief after finding insufficient proof of premeditation. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed that judgment.
View case3 common questions
The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict. If the government cannot make that showing the conviction must be reversed.
No. Most constitutional errors are subject to harmless error analysis. Only structural errors that affect the framework of the trial itself require automatic reversal.
An unpreserved error is reviewed for plain error. Even if the error is plain and affects substantial rights the court may decline to reverse if the error does not seriously affect the fairness or integrity of the proceedings.