Opinion ID: 1169864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: INAPPLICABILITY OF CHAPMAN v. CALIFORNIA

Text: One reasonably might ask why we have not adopted the Chapman test as the one to be applied to errors not affecting federal constitutional rights. There is nothing grossly wrong with the rule laid down in Chapman when viewed against the purposes which brought that rule into being and which indicate the appropriate boundaries of its operation. But to adopt that rule without a critical inquiry into its underlying basis would not, in our opinion, fulfill the obligation of independent, informed judgment which rests upon us as the judicial officers who are expected to determine questions of Alaska law. [16] The fundamental rule applied by the United States Supreme Court over many years was that of automatic reversal for the introduction of constitutionally prohibited evidence or the commission of other trial court errors which impaired federal constitutional rights. The rule of automatic reversal has been used in cases concerning coerced confessions, [17] unconstitutional presumptions, [18] prejudicial publicity, [19] speedy trial, [20] discriminatory jury selection, [21] unconstitutional state statutes, [22] and denial of counsel, [23] to name only a few. In some of these cases the constitutional breach may have played little or no role in the conviction. [24] Between Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532, 18 S.Ct. 183, 42 L.Ed. 568 (1897), and the decision in Chapman in 1967 the court used the harmless error principle in treating constitutional claims on only a few occasions, and then only in trivial or rather special situations. [25] It was reasonably believed by many observers that the harmless error doctrine might be totally irrelevant to claims of error based on a constitutional right or privilege. In Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 84 S.Ct. 229, 11 L.Ed.2d 171 (1963), the court granted certiorari to determine whether state harmless error rules could be applied in cases where illegally seized evidence had been introduced contrary to the prohibitions of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). But the court did not reach that issue. It found that the state court had misapplied its own harmless error rule and ostensibly reversed on that ground. Fahy v. Connecticut, supra, 375 U.S., at 91-92, [26] 84 S.Ct. 229. Finally, in the Chapman case the court made clear that some errors violative of constitutional rights can, in the setting of a particular case, be so unimportant and insignificant that they may, consistent with the Federal Constitution, be deemed harmless, not requiring automatic reversal of the conviction. 386 U.S., at 22, 87 S.Ct., at 827. But before a constitutional error may be declared harmless there are two major hurdles to be crossed. First, the beneficiary of the error has the burden to show that it was harmless. 386 U.S., at 24, 87 S.Ct., at 824. Second, the court passing upon it must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 386 U.S., at 24, 87 S.Ct., at 828. Applying this test to improper prosecutorial comment on the failure of the accused to testify, outlawed by Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965), the court found the error to be harmful and necessarily reversible. We cannot tell from a careful reading of the majority opinion in Chapman what will be the future evolutions and consequences of the test there announced, as there is much that is not stated in the Chapman majority opinion. [27] Even the rationale for enforcing a federally created standard of constitutional harmless error is not explored in detail. As the reflective dissent of Mr. Justice Harlan points out, there are many reasons the majority may have had for employing the rule, but it did not state them. Perhaps the majority was concerned that state-fashioned harmless error rules might be used as instruments to dilute and evade federal constitutional guarantees, particularly the new doctrines made applicable to the states by Fourteenth Amendment interpretations during the last decade. But this we do not know because we are not told. [28] In sum, Chapman tells us that although harmless error can be applied to constitutional guarantees, this will be permitted only sparingly and under strict standards. By contrast, the errors we must review touch upon a host of matters which have nothing to do with the effectuation of federal constitutional rights, or have only a tenuous connection with those rights. The errors with which we must deal are considerable in their variety. They may concern matters of our local procedure and rules of evidence; they may employ notions of discretion, convenience, and the historical evolution of rules; and they may present problems peculiar to the physical, economic and social circumstances of Alaska. The range of problems is so broad that we are unwilling to bind ourselves to a rule fashioned for a different purpose, the future interpretations of which rule are largely unpredictable. We feel that more flexibility is needed than is to be found in a test stated in the stark terms of reasonable doubt. The second troubling feature of the Chapman test is its very brevity. The mere statement of a formula is of no great value unless we know something about the principles by which it will be applied. It is true that we have selected a simple statement to summarize our own approach to harmless error: whether we can fairly say that the error did not appreciably affect the jury's verdict. But we have also stated some of the principles by which we hope to reach decision and we have indicated some of the perimeters within which the harmless error rule is to be applied. We have consciously used the terms fair assurance and substantially swayed interchangeably with fairly say and appreciably affect. [29] Any meaningful difference between those sets of terms and the thought expressed becomes a subject more appropriate for investigation by semanticists and metaphysicians than by us. If anything, the use of those slightly different terms to express a single standard illustrates our view that the application of the harmless error rule brings into play a group of principles and approaches to decision which cannot be imprisoned in any one terse phrase or formula. It is often illusory to attempt, within an apparently simple statement of a rule, to comprehend a set of principles which cannot be confined to rigidity in their application. Of course, legal principles seem to carry within themselves an innate reductive tendency by which statements of specific rules, or sets of rules, eventually replace the principles themselves. The law could not function well without this method. But we should never forget that, The nadir of mechanical jurisprudence is reached when conceptions are used, not as premises from which to reason, but as ultimate solutions. So used, they cease to be conceptions and become empty words. Pound, Mechanical Jurisprudence, 8 Colum.L.Rev. 605 (1908), at 620-621. So it is that we have tried to retain some elasticity in our statement of the avenues by which harmless error will be determined in our future decisions. We have also tried to avoid an approach so standardless as to become a potential instrument of judicial whimsy. The superior court's affirmance is reversed with directions to remand to the district court for a new trial.