Opinion ID: 2636172
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Stromberg error is instructional trial error

Text: Although Cortinas does not specifically maintain that the Stromberg error presented in this case is structural, he nevertheless urges this court to follow Bolden's absolute certainty approach, which depends on that assumption. We reject Cortinas' argument and conclude that Stromberg error is not structural but instead is instructional trial error. As such, Stromberg error is amenable to harmless-error review. Whether a particular type of error is amenable to harmless-error review depends on whether the error can be categorized as structural error or trial error. [34] The United States Supreme Court has explained the distinction between these two types of errors. Unlike constitutional trial errors, which occur[] during the presentation of the case to the jury, and which may therefore be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented, [35] structural errors affect the very `framework within which the trial proceeds.' [36] Consequently, these intrinsically harmful errors `necessarily render a trial fundamentally unfair.' [37] Because they are, therefore, never harmless, structural errors require automatic reversal. [38] Correspondingly, since `most constitutional [trial] errors can be harmless,' [39] structural errors arise only in a `very limited class of cases.' [40] Conspicuously, the Stromberg error in this case is not a member of the limited class of structural error. [41] Indeed, as we observed in Bolden, the Supreme Court has never addressed whether Stromberg error is subject to harmless-error analysis, [42] despite numerous opportunities to do so. [43] Notwithstanding this silence regarding the nature of Stromberg error in particular, the Court in Neder v. United States clearly stated that the Chapman harmless-error standard applies to review of instructional errors involving the omission or misdescription of an element of an offense. As our instructional error cases have interpreted Neder's holding, unless the error Vitiates all the jury's findings,' and produces `consequences that are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate,' [44] an instructional error amounts to constitutional trial error and is, therefore, subject to harmless-error review. [45] That is not to say that instructional error can never be structural in nature. Examining the relevant federal cases on this issue, the Supreme Court has found structural error in the context of jury instructions only once. In Sullivan v. Louisiana , the jury received a defective reasonable-doubt instruction that relieved the prosecution of its burden of proof and thereby allowed the jury to render a guilty verdict based on findings supported by less than a constitutional quantum of evidence. [46] Since the instruction therefore precluded the jury from delivering an actual verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, it defied harmless-error review, as an inquiry into whether the jury would have returned the same constitutionally deficient verdict had it been properly instructed was meaningless. [47] In contrast to Sullivan's defective burden-of-proof instruction, an erroneous instruction that makes available an invalid alternative theory of liability, as occurred here, does not vitiate the jury's findings. Nor does it defy harmless-error review, i.e., whether the jury would have reached the same verdict had the invalid theory not been available. In other words, even in the case of Stromberg error, there is still an  object, so to speak, upon which harmless-error scrutiny can operate. [48] Further, we do not consider it reasonable to define Stromberg error as structural. In a Stromberg scenario, more than one theory of liability is presented to the jury, at least one of which is legally invalid. In such a case, Bolden, Keating, and Lara suggest that harmless-error review is precluded. On the other hand, when only one theory of liability is available and the attendant instructions omit or misdescribe an element, Nay and Neder suggest that harmless-error review applies even though, in contrast to a Stromberg scenario, the jury has no valid alternative basis upon which to rest a verdict. [49] As the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has recognized, since harmless-error review traditionally extends to single-theory cases in which there are no valid alternative theories upon which to rest a verdict, it would be anomalous to read Stromberg to preclude harmless-error review ... because the jury also was given the option to convict based on a constitutionally valid theory. [50] The assertion that the availability of a valid alternative basis to convict would intensify the prejudice that normally results from submitting an invalid theory of guilt to the jury `cannot possibly be right, so it is plainly wrong.' [51] Thus, to the extent that Stromberg error has been distinguished from instructional error involving the omission or misdescription of an element of an offense, we believe that the distinction is unpersuasive for purposes of harmless-error review. We therefore retreat from Bolden's absolute certainty approach [52] and conclude that harmless-error review applies when a general verdict may rest on a legally valid or a legally invalid alternative theory of liability. In this regard, we accordingly reaffirm Nay.