Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-826_p702.pdf
Page Number: 42.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

13 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

error asks under each standard.  See supra, at 8–9.  Apply-
ing  AEDPA,  the  court  asks  whether  the  state  court  acted
“unreasonabl[y]” in finding (under Chapman) that the error 
was  harmless  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt—meaning  that
there is no “reasonable possibility” it “might have contrib-
uted to the conviction.”  28 U. S. C. §2254(d); Chapman, 386 
U. S.,  at  23–24.  Applying  Brecht,  the  court  instead  asks 
whether  the  error  was  “actual[ly]  prejudic[ial]”—meaning
that there is, at a minimum, “grave doubt” about whether 
an  error  had  a  “substantial  and  injurious  effect  or  influ-
ence” on a verdict.  Brecht, 507 U. S., at 637; O’Neal, 513 
U. S., at 435–436.  The majority is quite right to note that 
AEDPA’s  language  of  reasonableness  directs  a  court  to 
think  about  how  all  fairminded  jurists  would  approach  a
question, while Brecht tells a court to decide a question for 
itself.  Cf. ante, at 17, n. 3 (somehow still asserting that I
“paper over th[is] difference[]”).  But what the majority ob-
scures is that those two questions are starkly different.  A 
court  doing  AEDPA  puts  a  reasonableness overlay  on  the 
Chapman question; a court doing Brecht of course asks the 
Brecht  question.    And  the  Chapman  question—see  just
above—is far easier for a defendant to prevail on.  Accord, 
ante, at 12–13.  (That is why the Brecht test was created— 
to better protect the finality of convictions on habeas.  See 
Brecht, 507 U. S., at 637–638.)  So much easier, indeed, that 
Fry  thought  it  self-evident  (“obvious”)  that  even  with  the 
AEDPA  overlay,  the  Chapman  inquiry  would  require  the
release of more prisoners.  Fry, 551 U. S., at 120. 

The relationship between Brecht and AEDPA/Chapman
means that today’s holding will make no difference to ha-
beas outcomes.  Consider a court that has found the Brecht 
test satisfied: It has, at the least, “grave doubt” about the
error affecting the verdict.  Will that same court say that a 
reasonable jurist could find no such effect beyond a reason-
able  doubt—that  the  jurist  could  deny  there  was  even  a
“reasonable possibility” of the error mattering?  The answer