Opinion ID: 2976344
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Cumulative-error claim

Text: Wheaton’s final claim on appeal is that even if none of the issues he has raised constitutes reversible error, the “cumulative effect” of those errors rendered his trial fundamentally unfair, thereby violating his right to the due process of law. A defendant is in fact free to “show that the combined effect of individually harmless errors was so prejudicial as to render his trial fundamentally unfair.” United States v. Trujillo, 376 F.3d 593,614 (6th Cir. 2004). But cumulativeerror analysis permits us to look only at actual errors, not non-errors. See Campbell v. United States, 364 F.3d 727, 736 (6th Cir. 2004) (acknowledging that “trial-level errors that would be considered harmless when viewed in isolation of each other might, when considered cumulatively, require reversal of a conviction,” but explaining that “the accumulation of non-errors cannot collectively amount to a violation of due process” (internal quotation marks omitted)). As we have discussed in the preceding sections, Wheaton has not shown that the district court committed any errors either at trial or in sentencing. His cumulative-error claim must therefore fail.