Opinion ID: 1169864
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the harmless error question

Text: The appellee urges that the admission of the experimental evidence, if error, was harmless. [10] In Daniels v. State, 388 P.2d 813 (Alaska 1964), this court, in a criminal case, applied the harmless error rule to the admission of evidence which was irrelevant, saying, [E]ven if that part of her testimony objected to below had been stricken there is no reasonable probability that a fairminded jury would have arrived at a different verdict. We find no prejudicial error on this point. 388 P.2d at 816. On other occasions this court has reversed or affirmed evidentiary rulings as being either harmless or prejudicial, but without discussing at any length the standards governing harmless error in criminal cases. [11] In a recent case this court applied the constitutional harmless error test which was announced in Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), to an error claimed on other than constitutional grounds. [12] The present case permits a closer look at the principles which should guide decision in applying the harmless error rule. The subject is one of great importance, not only because it pervades the appellate process but because it goes to the vitals of our entire legal system. This is because the system must be judged not only by what it says, but by what it does. A formal statement of legal rules is of little value unless we know the methods by which those rules operate in practice. What matters pragmatically is only the portion of the formal rule that survives after the judicial apparatus has done its work. The application of the harmless error rule in a given case is a broad act of judgment, with all that the term implies. It is not easy to express in mechanistic verbal formulae a rule comprehending the many factors which motivate that act of judgment. The interplay of impression and analysis, the experience and legal philosophy of the judge, the necessity to balance between competing interests, and a detailed consideration of the actualities in each case, all contribute inevitably to the result. Still it is possible to set bounds by which decision can be approximated. The borderlines may sometimes be blurred, but even those may become more distinct when enough case-by-case determinations permit a trend of decisional law to be observed. The harmless error doctrine originated in part because of the rule, at common law, that a reversal of a criminal conviction on appeal required the discharge of the prisoner, who could not be retried. The gist of the earliest rule was that if, from the record, the reviewing court had no reasonable doubt that guilt was proved by proper evidence, the reception of improper evidence would not result in reversal. [13] But if it were otherwise, reversal was required. This was supplanted in the early Nineteenth Century by the Exchequer rule which, with rare exceptions, gave the defeated party a right to a new trial for any erroneous ruling by the trial court. The Exchequer rule gained rapid ascendancy in the United States and was still thriving here long after it had been reformed in England. The apotheosis of the rule by so many of our courts resulted in shocking injustice in many instances. Presented by the possibility of reversal for the most trifling errors, the rule became a tool for the crafty, the rich oppressors, and the hypertechnicians of the law. The stultifying effects of the rule created a condition approaching a crisis in judicial administration, and brought forward a strong movement for change. Eventually reforms were sought and obtained after a long struggle. [14] All of our jurisdictions today employ standards which attempt to distinguish between errors which are merely technical and those which inflict harm by affecting the substantial rights of a party. The difficulties of applying the harmless error rule are summarized ably by Professor Wright: Unhappily the appellate courts, on whom the duty falls to enforce contemporary standards of fairness, are not vouchsafed the luxury of abstract decisions, and they are constantly forced to make the most agonizing kind of choice between the public interest in maintaining fair trials and the public interest in putting criminals behind bars. The dilemma is not resolved by elegant language about protecting the pure fabric of criminal prosecution against the `ghostly phantom of the innocent man falsely convicted'; neither is it resolved by a doctrinaire insistence on freeing the guilty in every case in which the prosecutor has overreached or the trial court has lapsed. 3 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure, 354 (1969) (footnotes omitted). Some of the guides for decision can be stated more aptly in the negative than otherwise. For example, it is not the function of an appellate tribunal, working from the dead record, to make the determination of guilt or innocence. Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 66 S.Ct. 402, 90 L.Ed. 350 (1946). That issue is for the jury. People v. Mleczko, 298 N.Y. 153, 81 N.E.2d 65 (1948). The test is not whether, with the erroneous matter elided from the record, there would be enough evidence to support a conviction. It is not for us to speculate on the outcome at a retrial, absent the erroneous matter. The pivotal question is what the error might have meant to the jury. Our function is to consider not how the error would have affected us if we had tried the case, but how it may have affected a jury of reasonable laymen. It is the impact on their minds which is critical in determining whether an error impaired or affected the substantial interest of the defendant in having a fair trial. A keen analysis of the harmless error rule is found in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946). The majority, speaking through Mr. Justice Rutledge, stated the ultimate test as follows: But if one cannot say, with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error, it is impossible to conclude that substantial rights were not affected. The inquiry cannot be merely whether there was enough to support the result, apart from the phase affected by the error. It is rather, even so, whether the error itself had substantial influence. If so, or if one is left in grave doubt, the conviction cannot stand. 328 U.S., at 765, 66 S.Ct., at 1248. This is the test which we must employ. Any approach more permissive would allow the conviction of persons for criminal offenses by means which do not measure up to established legal standards. [15] Our quest is not justice according to one's personal belief about the desirable result in a given case, but justice according to law. As the New York Court of Appeals has put it, speaking through Fuld, J.: It cannot be overemphasized that our legal system is concerned as much with the integrity of the judicial process as with the issue of guilt or innocence. The constitutional and statutory safeguards provided for one accused of crime are to be applied in all cases. The worst criminal, the most culpable individual, is as much entitled to the benefit of a rule of law as the most blameless member of society. To disregard violation of the rule because there is proof in the record to persuade us of a defendant's guilt would but lead to erosion of the rule and endanger the rights of even those who are innocent. People v. Donovan (1964), 13 N.Y.2d 148, 243 N.Y.S.2d 841, at 845, 193 N.E.2d 628, at 631. The test we employ today is less rigorous than that employed by the United States Supreme Court in cases where constitutional rights are affected by evidentiary determinations in state courts. In those cases we are bound by the rule of Chapman v. California, supra, that before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 386 U.S., at 24, 87 S.Ct., at 829. As to ordinary errors, not based on a constitutional claim, we read Chapman as permitting us to employ a different approach. The announced standards of Kotteakos v. United States, supra, which we adopt today for ordinary criminal trial errors, were applied in that case to federal ordinary errors and not those based on a claim under the Constitution of the United States. It is not clear whether the Chapman standard in the future will be applied to all errors in federal criminal trials. But for our own purposes the Kotteakos principles are, in our opinion, a proper guide where the Chapman standard does not come into play. A case similar to the one before us is Tippit v. State, 332 P.2d 222 (Okl.Cr. 1958), in which an experiment had been conducted to demonstrate that the victim of an automobile accident could have been knocked or dragged a certain distance by the automobile driven by the defendant. A quantity of wet sand was placed in a burlap bag, together with a partially inflated truck tire innertube, which was placed in a vertical position, in an attempt to simulate the body of the victim as it was hit by the automobile. The court held that the admission of this experiment was error, as there was so little similarity between the conditions of the experiment and the facts of the case itself. The court deemed the admission of this evidence prejudicial error, as the testimony concerning it could not have done anything other than create confusion and prejudice against the defendant. We cannot fairly say that the experimental evidence did not appreciably affect the jury's verdict against appellants. The admission of the evidence was prejudicial error.