NCJ Number
142159
Journal
Criminal Justice Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1993) Pages: 2-8,57-58
Date Published
1993
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article re-examines the history of the harmless error doctrine and argues that its progenitors in legal academia and the U.S. Congress never intended the doctrine to extend to violations of a criminal defendant's constitutional rights.
Abstract
The legislative history indicates that the harmless error statute was aimed at repairing a process that had, in some cases, been placing form over substance. The statute was enacted to do no more than remove from the trial process the morass of procedural technicalities that have no bearing on the rights of the parties or the merits of the case. Harmless error was never intended to be applied to errors that involve substantive rights, of which the most sacred are those specified in the U.S. Constitution. Despite the historical rejection of the concept of harmless constitutional error, the U.S. Supreme Court, beginning with Chapman v. California (1967), decided that constitutional errors may be "so unimportant and insignificant" as to be deemed harmless. Arizona v. Fulminante (1991) is the culmination of a full retreat from the belief that constitutional rights are the means by which an individual secures liberty against the arbitrary and intrusive actions of the republic. On the basis of the paradigm of principled constitutionalism, no Federal constitutional error can ever be subject to harmless-error analysis. This article recommends statutory changes that will ensure that every criminal defendant who alleges that his/her conviction was the product of a constitutional infirmity will have the opportunity to present arguments before an appellate court to support this claim. Should the court find the existence of constitutional error, it should be bound to have the verdict automatically reversed.