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Text: "[G]uided by considerations of justice," McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 341 (1943), and in the exercise of supervisory powers, federal courts may, within limits, formulate procedural rules not specifically required by the Constitution or the Congress. The purposes underlying use of the supervisory powers are threefold: to implement a remedy for violation of recognized rights, McNabb, supra, at 340; Rea v. United States, 350 U.S. 214, 217 (1956); to preserve judicial integrity by ensuring that a conviction rests on appropriate considerations validly before the jury, McNabb, supra, at 345; Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222 (1960); and finally, as a remedy designed to deter illegal conduct, United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727, 735-736, n. 8 (1980).

The goals that are implicated by supervisory powers are not, however, significant in the context of this case if, as the Court of Appeals plainly implied, the errors alleged are harmless. Supervisory power to reverse a conviction is not needed as a remedy when the error to which it is addressed is harmless since, by definition, the conviction would have been obtained notwithstanding the asserted error. Further, in this context, the integrity of the process carries less weight, for it is the essence of the harmless-error doctrine that a judgment may stand only when there is no "reasonable possibility that the [practice] complained of might have contributed to the conviction." Fahy v. Connecticut, 375 U.S. 85, 86-87 (1963). Finally, deterrence is an inappropriate basis for reversal where, as here, the prosecutor's remark is at most an attenuated violation of Griffin[4] and where means more narrowly tailored to deter objectionable prosecutorial conduct are available.[5]

To the extent that the values protected by supervisory authority are at issue here, these powers may not be exercised in a vacuum. Rather, reversals of convictions under the court's supervisory power must be approached "with some caution," Payner, 447 U. S., at 734, and with a view toward balancing the interests involved, id., at 735-736, and n. 8; Elkins, supra, at 216; United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 755 (1979); cf. Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 340 (1939). As we shall see below, the Court of Appeals failed in this case to give appropriate _x0097_ if, indeed, any _x0097_ weight to these relevant interests. It did not consider the trauma the victims of these particularly heinous crimes would experience in a new trial, forcing them to relive harrowing experiences now long past, or the practical problems of retrying these sensitive issues more than four years after the events. See Morris v. Slappy, ante, at 14-15. The conclusion is inescapable that the Court of Appeals focused exclusively on its concern that the prosecutors within its jurisdiction were indifferent to the frequent admonitions of the court. The court appears to have decided to deter future similar comments by the drastic step of reversal of these convictions. But the interests preserved by the doctrine of harmless error cannot be so lightly and casually ignored in order to chastise what the court viewed as prosecutorial overreaching.