Court Opinion

ID: 9474781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:08:28.667536+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:19.677165
License: Public Domain

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority identifies a violation of the principles of Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610, 96 S.Ct. 2240, 44 L.Ed.2d 91 (1976), and inquires whether this violation is harmless “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the standard of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). It concludes that the error is not harmless under this exacting standard and holds that the writ of habeas corpus must issue. I do not quarrel with the majority’s conclusion that there was a violation, which is not harmless if the Chapman standard governs.1 But I disagree with the basis of the majority’s holding — the conclusion that Chapman applies to all violations of the constitution. The court should apply the standard of United States v. Lane, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 725, 88 L.Ed.2d 814 (1986), and Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946), under which a violation requires a new trial only if it “had substantial influence” on the course of the trial. See Phelps v. Duckworth, 772 F.2d 1410, 1421-22 (7th Cir. 1985) (en banc) (concurring opinion). This means “actual prejudice” (Lane, supra, 106 S.Ct. at 732), a significant likelihood of altering the verdict. Under that test the prosecutor’s misconduct in this case is harmless.
The standard of “harmlessness” has never been a unitary one. It varies with the nature of the underlying right, the time of the violation, the tools available to correct the violation at trial, and the number of layers of review. (1) Constitutional rules *449that promote the accuracy of the truth-finding process, that protect the innocent, are enforced strictly. “Prophylactic” rules designed to achieve collateral objectives need not be enforced in every case or at any cost. Doyle is a prophylactic rather than innocence-protecting rule. (2) Constitutional rules are enforced more strictly on direct review than on collateral review. Some rules are not enforced at all on collateral review. This case is a collateral attack, and the state courts gave full and fair consideration to Miller’s constitutional claim. (3) When the violation is one that may be prevented or corrected at trial, but because of the neglect of defense counsel is not, courts are less willing to enforce the rule strictly. Strict enforcement weakens the incentives to do things right the first time. The Doyle error in this case could have been corrected at trial more fully than it was, had Miller’s counsel but asked. (4) When the violation is prosecutorial misconduct during the trial, collateral review is limited to determining whether the trial is fundamentally fair. The prosecutor’s effort to use Miller’s silence was cut short by the judge, and we are left with prosecutorial misconduct rather than a completed Doyle violation. We are concerned with the adequacy of the remedy, not the identification of the wrong. All of these considerations suggest that Chapman is the wrong standard, for it stacks the deck against the verdict of the jury. I elaborate below on each of the four.
1. Doyle holds that the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment forbids the use as evidence of a suspect’s silence after he has received the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). See Wainwright v. Greenfield, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 634, 88 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986). This is not because silence will mislead the jury or cause it to convict an innocent person. To the contrary, innocent people with plausible explanations tend to give them promptly, in order to achieve release. Silence at the time of arrest, followed by an exculpatory story at trial, is evidence of guilt. Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U.S. 603, 102 S.Ct. 1309, 71 L.Ed.2d 490 (1982); Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 100 S.Ct. 2124, 65 L.Ed.2d 86 (1980). Cf. South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U.S. 553, 103 S.Ct. 916, 74 L.Ed.2d 748 (1983). Some language of Doyle suggests that silence is “insolubly ambiguous,” but cases such as Fletcher and Jenkins, which allow the jury to hear evidence of silence that precedes Miranda warnings, abandon this strand of Doyle’s reasoning. See also Greenfield, supra, 106 S.Ct. at 639 n.6, 640 & n.12.
The rule of Doyle therefore rests exclusively on the vice of the double-cross. Defendants ought not to be bushwhacked if they rely on the advice implicit in Miranda warnings that the exercise of the right to remain silent will not come back to haunt them. See Greenfield, supra, 106 S.Ct. at 639-41; Dean v. Young, 777 F.2d 1239, 1241-42 (7th Cir.1985). Miranda warnings are not parts of the constitution. They are designed to reduce the likelihood of subtle coercion of people in custody. Oregon v. Elstad, — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 1285, 1291-OS, 84 L.Ed.2d 222 (1985); Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 442-46, 94 S.Ct. 2357, 2362-64, 41 L.Ed.2d 182 (1974). Doyle is therefore a prophylactic rule designed to increase the efficacy of another prophylactic rule. It has nothing to do with the defendant’s guilt and everything to do with insisting that the government play straight with those it prosecutes.2
*450Because a violation of the rule of Doyle does not threaten the conviction of an innocent person, it is not essential to achieve perfect compliance. New trials are costly. They take the time courts and prosecutors could devote to affording first trials to other people. They increase the risk of error; trials long after the event, when memories have faded, are less likely to be accurate. And no one can guarantee that the second trial will be better than the first. There will be new opportunities for new errors, which may be as bad as the error in Miller’s trial. The enforcement of prophylactic rules is a matter of costs and benefits. Such rules should be enforced only so long as the benefits exceed the costs. See Thomas W. Merrill, The Common Law Powers of the Federal Courts, 52 U.Chi.L.Rev. 1, 53 (1985).
The two best-known prophylactic rules of the criminal law offer examples in abundance. The exclusionary rule under the fourth amendment and Miranda are both prophylactic rules, a “constitutional common law.” Henry P. Monaghan, The Supreme Court, 197b Term — Foreword: Constitutional Common Law, 89 Harv.L. Rev. 1 (1975); Merrill, supra, 52 U.Chi.L. Rev. at 54-59. The use of illegally seized evidence is not itself a violation of the constitution and does not increase the risk of convicting the innocent. The exclusionary rule is designed to influence the conduct of police by denying them some of the benefits of their misconduct. Yet because at some point the costs of influencing the police in this way begin to exceed the marginal benefits, the Court has given the exclusionary rule less than its largest possible scope. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3418-22, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984) (discussing both the nature and the rationale of the limits on enforcement). The rule prevents the government from using most (though not all) illegally seized evidence in the prosecutor’s case in chief against the person whose privacy has been invaded, but it does not prevent the use of such evidence during cross-examination to impeach exculpatory testimony. Exclusion in such circumstances would simply offer shelter for perjury without significantly increasing the deterrent value of the rule. United States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620 (1980).
Cases in the Miranda line also balance the gains from more rigorous enforcement against the costs. This has led to holdings that allow substantial use of the “fruits” of violations of Miranda (see Elstad and Tucker, supra) and that allow statements obtained in violation of Miranda to be used to impeach defendants who proclaim their innocence on the stand. Oregon v. Hass, 420 U.S. 714, 95 S.Ct. 1215, 43 L.Ed.2d 570 (1975); Harris v. New York, 401 U.S. 222, 91 S.Ct. 643, 28 L.Ed.2d 1 (1971). See also New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649, 104 S.Ct. 2626, 81 L.Ed.2d 550 (1984) (statements obtained in violation of Miranda may be used when the “public safety” made it advisable for the police to disregard Miranda). Even cases dealing with evidence obtained in violation of the sixth amendment’s right to counsel explicitly balance costs and benefits. Maine v. Moulton, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 477, 489-90, 88 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985).
Selecting a standard for assessing harmless error, no less than deciding when the prosecutor can use evidence the constitution says he should not have at all, requires an assessment of the marginal benefits and costs of additional enforcement. See United States v. Mechanik, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 938, 89 L.Ed.2d 50 (1986), in which the court uses just such an analysis to select a harmless error rule for violation of the rules concerning conduct before a grand jury. How much enforcement of the rule of Doyle is enough? Doyle is a descendent of Miranda, which suggests that perfect enforcement is not to be achieved at great cost. It is not concerned with protecting the innocent. The difference between a Chapman standard of review and a Kot-*451teakos standard is not likely to weaken the effective enforcement of Doyle; no matter what standard of harmless error a court uses, the substantive rule informs judges how they must respond to the prosecutors’ efforts and informs prosecutors that an effort to draw the jury’s attention to the defendant’s silence reduces the chance of conviction. These two messages, which are unaffected by the selection of a standard of harmless error, are the principal advantages of the rule. When the rule is as far removed from protecting the innocent as is Doyle, there is no need for the strict enforcement that the Chapman standard creates.
Indeed, the application of Doyle when the prosecutor uses the defendant’s silence to impeach his exculpatory testimony (as the prosecutor did in Miller’s trial) is anomalous. Harris and Hass hold that evidence obtained in violation of Miranda may be used to impeach, lest the defendant conclude that perjury will go unpunished. A use of silence condemned by Doyle, as another way to violate Miranda, should be treated the same way. Now Doyle itself involved silence used to impeach, but as I have explained Doyle initially rested on two lines of argument: the vice of prosecu-torial contradiction and the “insoluble ambiguity” of silence. The latter stand suggested that Doyle protected rather than undermined the search for truth. This line of justification was abandoned in Greenfield, Jenkins, and Fletcher. The only case other than Doyle in which the Supreme Court has held that evidence of silence at the time of arrest must be excluded is Greenfield. In Greenfield the prosecutor used the silence as part of the state’s case in chief. The Court then added this suggestive language: “At the outset, we note that, in this case, unlike Doyle and its progeny, the silence was used as affirmative proof in the case in chief, not as impeachment”, to which it added this footnote: “The constitutional violation [in Greenfield] thus might be especially egregious because, unlike Doyle, there was no risk ‘that exclusion of the evidence [would] merely provide a shield for perjury.’ 426 U.S., at 626, [96 S.Ct. at 2248] (Stevens, J., dissenting).” 106 S.Ct. at 639 & n.8. This may be too thin a foundation on which to build a conclusion that the prosecutor may ask the sort of question that the prosecutor did in this case. At a minimum, however, it shows that some violations of Doyle are more serious than others.
The sort of violation in this case is among the least serious, not only because it occurred during cross-examination but also because the court sustained an objection, on which more below. The less serious the offense, the less the state must do to rectify things. All of this calls for a standard of harmless error more tolerant than that of Chapman. The Supreme Court has never discussed the standard of harmless error that applies to a violation of Doyle’s rule.3 The choice is ours to make, and we should make it with reference to the kind of rule Doyle is and the costs and benefits of stricter enforcement, not by a mechanical invocation of Chapman.
2. This is a collateral attack on a criminal judgment. The comment on Miller’s silence may have violated the constitution, but it takes a stretch to say that Miller’s “custody” violates the constitution, which is the standard of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(a). Not all violations of the constitution turn the resulting “custody” into a violation. Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976), holds that violations of *452the fourth amendment do not permit a court to set aside the conviction under § 2254(a) unless' the state has failed to supply a full and fair opportunity for adjudicating the claim of violation. If the state supplies the necessary process, that vindicates the principles underlying the exclusionary rule; there is no need for the more complete protection that collateral review would produce.
This restriction of collateral review is but another demonstration that there can be too much of a good thing. It is costly to enforce any constitutional rule, and the “full treatment” should be reserved for rules designed to protect the innocent from improper conviction. See Henry J. Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U.Chi. L.Rev. 142 (1970). See also Paul M. Bator, Finality in Criminal Law and Federal Habeas Corpus for State Prisoners, 76 Harv. L.Rev. 441 (1963). If state courts rigorously enforce a constitutional rule, that should be sufficient without the need for a second tier of review — certainly so if the rule is unrelated to the proper ascertainment of guilt. A federal court properly may insist that the state offer a full and fair opportunity to litigate. If the state does this the grant of release on collateral attack is more likely to come as a stroke of lightning (and so not influence state policy), or even to reverse a correct decision of the state court, than to be an essential prop under the constitutional right. Cf. Vasquez v. Hillery, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 617, 88 L.Ed.2d 598 (1986), at 625 (O’Connor, J., concurring), 628-34 (Powell, J., dissenting).
The Court has yet to decide whether Stone v. Powell applies to cases in the Miranda sequence. See Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 481, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 2512 n. 7, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). So there is no simple answer to the question whether Doyle, a derivative, should be enforced on collateral attack.4 We cannot answer this by pointing out, as the majority observes, that a Doyle violation “is constitutional and personal to the petitioner.” Slip op. 14. Violations of the fourth amendment, too, are constitutional wrongs, and unless the wrong was “personal to” the defendant, the exclusionary rule does not apply even on direct review. Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980). The question is one of remedies on collateral attack, not of who was injured by the violation. But we need not pose the question as a choice between nonenforcement and full enforcement (meaning application of the Chapman standard). There is a middle ground. Some rights are enforceable on collateral attack, but only if the violation and injury are especially severe.
For example, a violation of Fed.R.Crim.P. 11, which establishes procedures for taking guilty pleas, is enforceable on direct appeal by almost automatic reversal. McCarthy v. United States, 394 U.S. 459, 89 S.Ct. 1166, 22 L.Ed.2d 418 (1969). On collateral attack, however, Rule 11 is enforceable only to the extent that the disregard of its provisions makes the proceedings fundamentally unfair. United States v. Timmreck, 441 U.S. 780, 99 S.Ct. 2085, 60 L.Ed.2d 634 (1979). The difference is not attributable to the nonconstitutional status of Rule 11, for the Rule is a “law,” and the pertinent statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, allows collateral attack on the ground that a person is in custody “in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States”. See Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 94 S.Ct. 2298, 41 L.Ed.2d 109 (1974). The change in the standard of review instead rests on the conclusion that for Rule 11, as for many other things, one round of review is sufficient unless something has gone very wrong indeed. See Hill v. United States, 368 U.S. 424, 428, 82 S.Ct. 468, 471, 7 L.Ed.2d 417 (1962); Sunal v. Large, 332 U.S. 174, 67 S.Ct. 1588, 91 L.Ed. 1982 (1947). The same may be said for review *453of state convictions. See Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154 & n.13, 97 S.Ct. 1730, 1737 & n. 13, 52 L.Ed.2d 203 (1977), which holds that only in the rarest of cases will an instruction to which no objection was made at trial support collateral attack, even though the same instruction might have been “plain error” on direct appeal. All of these distinctions implement the principle that more enforcement of constitutional rights is not always required. If Doyle errors may be raised on collateral attack at all, “enough” enforcement will be achieved by application of the Kotteakos standard.
Chapman itself was a direct appeal, and the underlying right was designed to prevent juries from drawing unjustified inferences of guilt from the invocation of the privilege against self-incrimination. The Supreme Court has never explicitly considered when the Chapman standard should be applied in cases that are marginally (if at all) appropriate for collateral review. Cases such as Henderson v. Kibbe support the use of a graduated standard of review, and we ought not await a formal command from the Supreme Court that graduation is the norm.
3. One trial should be enough. In order to make one trial sufficient, it is necessary to ensure that counsel have the right incentives to marshall their resources for a single, correct presentation. It is also necessary to ensure that if something should go wrong, counsel have reason to correct whatever is correctable rather than sit by and store up error. Contemporaneous objection rules, and the forfeiture of collateral attack in the absence of such objections, help induce counsel to take care at trial. See Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U.S. 72, 97 S.Ct. 2497, 53 L.Ed.2d. 594 (1977); Engle v. Isaac, 456 U.S.. 107, 102 S.Ct. 1558, 71 L.Ed.2d 783 (1982); United States ex rel. Spurlark v. Wolff, 699 F.2d 354 (7th Cir.1983) (en banc).
The fact that some errors can be prevented or cured during the trial has led not only to preclusion of review, as in Sykes, but also to redefinitions of the right. We say that the defendant has a right to exclude hearsay if he objects, not that any use of hearsay is error. This is so for constitutional rights as well. The defendant starts with a presumption of innocence, and the Court has held that this implies a right not to be tried in jail garb. Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 96 S.Ct. 1691, 48 L.Ed.2d 126 (1976). The defendant must assert this right to claim it, however; if he does not object, he may not later complain. The rationale for this, and for other cases insisting that the defendant take an active part in the vindication of his rights, is that every participant in the trial should help to reduce the incidence of error. Errors that affect the operation of the trial may and should be prevented or cured; there is joint responsibility.
True, counsel for the defendant may be snoozing. But drowsiness is yet another preventable problem, and the errors of counsel will be overlooked unless they were so substantial that they probably change the outcome of the trial. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984); Hill v. Lockhart, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 366, 369, 88 L.Ed.2d 203 (1985). The Court treats the effect of error on the trial as part of the definition of the right, because perfect representation is unlikely and it would be too costly to keep rerunning trials until things finally were done at a very high level of care. Chapman vanishes as a standard in ineffective assistance cases. Gross errors of counsel will not lead to relief, even though a court could not find the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.
Where does this lead us? It means that errors within the power of counsel to correct at trial should not be assessed under the Chapman standard. Errors counsel should correct, counsel must correct. If counsel fails to do what is necessary (say, to object to the use of jail garb), that diminishes or eliminates review of the mistake. The case transmutes to an inquiry into the overall efficacy of counsel. If this is an isolated problem, there will be no relief; if counsel was seriously deficient *454and this calls into question the accuracy of the verdict, then there may be relief. It is silly to review each correctable error under the stringent Chapman standard and yet to review counsel’s failure to prevent or correct these errors under a standard even looser than that of Kotteakos.
Miller’s counsel could not have prevented the prosecutor’s initial question, but counsel could have done more to deal with that question. Counsel objected; the court sustained the objection; that was the end. After discussing matters with counsel, the court told the jury to “ignore that last question for the time being.” The majority finds this “too ambiguous” (slip op. 447) to overcome the implication in the prosecutor’s sally. When was the jury to consider the question? During deliberations? The majority says that only “a clear, immediate, and unambiguous cautionary instruction can be sufficient to cure a Doyle violation.” Ibid.
But a paltry or confusing instruction to the jury may have been what Miller’s lawyer wanted. He could have asked for a stronger instruction during the conference held before the court gave this feeble one; he did not. Counsel could have asked for more, at once; he did not. Counsel could have asked for more when the judge gave the instructions at the end of the case; he did not. Counsel could have argued the point during his own closing argument; he did not. All of these courses carry risks. Perhaps Miller’s counsel thought that the prosecutor’s abortive inquiry had not affected the jury. In that event it may have been sound strategy to leave things without further comment. Counsel may have concluded that the more the judge said, the more the jury would think about the fact that Miller was silent when arrested. Cf. Lakeside v. Oregon, 435 U.S. 333, 345-48, 98 S.Ct. 1091, 1097-99, 55 L.Ed.2d 319 (1978) (Stevens, J., dissenting). Perhaps the risks of correction are so high that we should deem the judge’s curative instruction irrelevant. But if cure is possible, cf. Parker v. Randolph, 442 U.S. 62, 69-75, 99 S.Ct. 2132, 2137-40, 60 L.Ed.2d 713 (1979), then counsel’s performance matters.
If counsel made a strategic decision not to ask the judge to give the sort of instruction the majority says was missing — to tell the jury that Miller had a right to remain silent and that the jury should not infer anything from the exercise of that right— then there is no basis for setting aside the conviction. A federal court ought not insist that the judge give instructions that defense counsel did not want. If, on the other hand, Miller’s lawyer was asleep on his feet and did not ask for an instruction or clarification that would have helped his client, then this case should be assessed under the standards of Strickland, and the verdict should be preserved unless Miller shows that his counsel’s neglect likely affected the outcome. Whether counsel was awake or asleep, tactical genius or blunderer, there is no reason to apply the standard of Chapman to the failure of counsel to ask (or the judge to volunteer) a better curative instruction.
4. The problem in Miller’s case is one of prosecutorial misconduct, not judicial error. The prosecutor set off on a forbidden path. Before he could get past the first question, he was cut off by the judge, who correctly sustained an objection. If the court had allowed the questioning to continue or had allowed the prosecutor to argue to the jury that it should infer guilt from silence, we would have a completed violation, as there was a completed violation in Chapman.
The Court assesses prosecutorial misconduct under standards less stringent than that of Chapman. For example, in Don-nelly v. DeChristoforo, 416 U.S. 637, 94 S.Ct. 1868, 40 L.Ed.2d 431 (1974), the prosecutor offered a personal opinion that the defendant was guilty and insinuated that defense counsel were seeking a conviction on reduced charges rather than an acquittal. This was serious misconduct, yet the Court held that the misconduct could support relief on collateral attack only if it so undercut the fairness of the entire trial that the trial violated the due process clause. Similarly, in United States v. Young, — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 34 *455L.Ed.2d 1 (1985), a case on direct appeal, the Court applied the Kotteakos standard to prosecutorial misconduct in closing argument.
It could be said that these cases simply exclude particular instances of prosecutorial misconduct from the category of “violations of due process” and therefore do not affect the harmless error rule that applies to “real” violations. Perhaps so, as the majority concludes, although this is an artificial distinction. There is no analytical difference between saying “prosecutorial misconduct does not violate the due process clause unless it is sufficient to call for a new trial under Kotteakos” and saying “prosecutorial misconduct is fundamentally unfair and violates the due process clause, but it leads to a new trial only if it meets the standards of Kotteakos.”
At all events, the argument that there is a clear separation between the definition of “unconstitutional misconduct” and the selection of the standard of review no longer carries the day. United States v. Bagley, — U.S. —, 105 S.Ct. 3375, 87 L.Ed.2d 481 (1985), is a good example. The constitution requires the prosecutor to deliver material, exculpatory evidence to the defense. This is a duty; it does not depend on the prosecutor’s state of mind. United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 110, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2400, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976). One could say that if the prosecutor violates this duty, then the conviction must be set aside unless the violation is harmless under Chapman. The Court has taken a different approach. Unless the prosecutor suborns perjury or refuses to supply exculpatory material that he knows is material, the conviction will be sustained unless the defendant shows that the withheld information “undermines confidence in the outcome of the trial.” Bagley, supra, 105 5. Ct. at 3381. Here we have a case of constitutional error5 — more, constitutional error that could lead to the conviction of an innocent person — in which the Court puts on the defendant the burden of showing a probable effect on the outcome. This is review under a standard even less searching than Kotteakos, which assigns the burden to the prosecutor. Bagley merges the standard of review with the definition of the violation. So Chapman does not apply to all violations of the constitution.6 It never did, and when the violation is prose-cutorial misconduct, the Court is apt to apply an exceptionally loose standard of error.
5. All of this is reinforced by the fact that we must assess the state court’s selection of a remedy for the wrong done to Miller. The state court gave a curative instruction. Morris v. Mathews, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 1032, 89 L.Ed.2d 187 (1986), suggests that the Chapman standard does not apply to disputes about the adequacy of remedies. Morris held that a court may cure a violation of the double jeopardy clause by substituting a conviction on an offense not barred by the clause, unless “the defendant shows a reliable inference of prejudice.” 106 S.Ct. at 1038. Four Justices would have used the Chapman standard, see id. at 1040-43 (Blackmun & Powell, JJ., concurring), 1044 (Brennan, J., dissenting), 1044-45 (Marshall, J., dissenting). Morris presented a question about how to cope with a constitutional error. The state coped by substituting a conviction on a lesser crime. The Court held it appropriate to require the defendant to *456show that the state’s remedial device was insufficient to cure the constitutional error. This is not Chapman’s allocation of burdens. Perhaps Morris is limited to double jeopardy cases, but it could also be read to establish a general rule that the defendant must bear the burden of showing that despite the state’s remedial device “the result of the proceeding probably would have been different” (id. at —, U.S. at —, 106 S.Ct. at 1038) had there been no error. This fact-bound inquiry is an appropriate subject of deference under 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d), albeit not preclusion. Cf. Miller v. Fenton, — U.S. —, 106 S.Ct. 445, 88 L.Ed.2d 405 (1985).
I recognize that all of this has the makings of a bad stew. A cup of analogy to the exclusionary rule, four oz. of Harris v. New York, a slice of Stone v. Powell, a dollop of Wainwright v. Sykes, all seasoned by Donnelly v. DeChristoforo and Strickland v. Washington. Why scramble due process, the fourth amendment, restrictions on the scope of the substantive rule, preclusion of review, ineffective assistance of counsel, and other doctrines? Why not keep things straight?
It is tempting to sort these cases into little boxes and dismiss each as irrelevant to Chapman. But these principles are not so easy to confine. Bagley, a prosecutorial misconduct case, adopts the standard of Strickland v. Washington, an assistance of counsel case, which was in turn influenced by Wainwright v. Sykes, a forfeiture case. Morris merges questions of error with questions of remedy. These cases all reflect an underlying concern that collateral review of criminal convictions is very costly, a conclusion that the search for perfect justice must stop well short. The standards for determining harmless error, just like the rules of forfeiture and the scope of the exclusionary rule, must be based on an appreciation of the benefits and costs of “better” enforcement of the substantive rules of law.
It is both tempting and wrong to treat “error” as a dichotomous phenomenon, as a matter of yes or no. There is error or not; the kind of error is reviewable on collateral review or not; this claim of error was forfeited or not; the error is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt or not; so the chain of questions and answers goes. Yet the definition of error, the scope of review on collateral attack, the circumstances under which review is forfeited, and the appropriate standard of harmless error have common influences. It is better to consider all of these together — however untidy the result may be — than to enforce an artificial separation. The definition of error, the scope of review, and the standard for assessing harmlessness all have shadings rather than simple, dichotomous answers.
The treatment of such questions as binary may produce unpleasant results. A court convinced that certain constitutional rights are not all that important may be tempted to cut down the scope of the right or to preclude review altogether, if these are the only alternatives to review under the Chapman standard. Alterations in the rules for determining harmless error may permit a court to enforce the rules of forfeiture less harshly. The interactions work in many directions.
Still, what conclusion comes from all of this? That Doyle should not be enforced on collateral review? That the standards of harmless error should differ on direct and collateral review? That the defendant must show that the prosecutor’s misconduct probably changed the result of the trial? That Kotteakos is the right standard of harmless error? None of these flows ineluctably from the discussion. But I also need not choose. The majority applies the most stringent standard (Chapman ), on collateral review, to the prosecutor’s foiled effort to violate a prophylactic rule. We needn’t know the right analysis to know that Chapman should not be used. The application of the Kotteakos standard here yields a conclusion that the judgment of the state court should stand. It is neither wise nor necessary for a federal court to review with greater rigor the state’s *457decision that the violation of the rule of Doyle in this case was harmless.

. Even under Chapman there is a good argument that the error is harmless, as six Justices of the Supreme Court of Illinois held (see 96 Ill.2d 385, 70 Ill.Dec. 849, 450 N.E.2d 322) and as Chief Judge Cummings concludes. The trial lasted nine days; the offending question was a brief interlude. The court sustained an objection to the question, and the prosecutor never got to argue to the jury the inference it should draw from silence. The court told the jury at the end of the case to ignore all questions to which objections had been sustained. Doubtless the judge would have been more explicit had Miller’s counsel asked for more. Counsel did not ask the judge to elaborate, perhaps concluding that it would be counterproductive to focus the jury’s attention on this. The evidence in this case did not admit of one conclusion only, but neither did the evidence in Phelps v. Duckworth, 772 F.2d 1410 (7th Cir.1985) (en banc), in which we found a similar frustrated prosecutorial effort to have been harmless.

. "Playing straight” is a valuable objective, but it does not always prohibit a change of heart. Consider Mabry v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 504, 104 S.Ct. 2543, 81 L.Ed.2d 437 (1984), holding that a prosecutor may withdraw an offer of an advantageous plea bargain. Consider the holding that a confession obtained after the deceit of a suspect's lawyer is nonetheless admissible. Moran v. Burbine, — U.S. —, —, —, 106 S.Ct. 1135, 1142, 1146, 89 L.Ed.2d 410 (1986). Or consider the many defendants prosecuted for carrying out a President’s instructions. See the three distinct positions expressed in United States v. Barker, 546 F.2d 940 (D.C. Cir.1976). The legal system has never tried to make all promises of governmental agents perfectly believable or enforceable. E.g., Heckler v. Community Health Services of Crawford County, Inc., 467 U.S. 51, 104 S.Ct. 2218, 81 L.Ed.2d 42 (1984); United States v. Caceres, 440 U.S. 741, 99 *450S.Ct. 1465, 59 L.Ed.2d 733 (1979); United States v. Medico Industries, Inc., 784 F.2d 840, 845-46 (7th Cir.). The questions are how much enforcement, at what cost, for whose benefit? But I need not pursue the matter.

. The parties in Greenfield did not present any issue concerning harmless error. 106 S.Ct. at 640 n.13. None of the earlier cases in this line discusses the question. Justice Rehnquist, concurring in Greenfield, observed that "the State does not argue here that any error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt”, 106 S.Ct. at 641, and went on to volunteer that even though the prosecutor argued inferences from silence during his closing argument (which did not happen here) "the brevity of the prosecutor’s comment, at least suggests that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt”, 106 S.Ct. at 644. It is fanciful to find in this aside a conclusion that "reasonable doubt" is the right standard to use. The parties had not argued any standard of harmless error, and perforce they had not debated (and Justice Rehnquist had not focused attention on) which standard is the right one.

. Our court has held that Doyle and Miranda claims will be entertained on collateral attack. White v. Finkbeiner, 687 F.2d 885 (7th Cir.1982) vacated on other grounds, 465 U.S. 1075, 104 S.Ct. 1433, 79 L.Ed.2d 756 (1984). See also Morgan v. Hall, 569 F.2d 1161, 1168-69 (1st Cir.1978).

. The majority properly points out that Bagley said that "suppression of evidence amounts to a constitutional violation only if it deprives the defendant of a fair trial." 105 S.Ct. at 3381. This merges the standard of harmless error into the definition of the violation. But other passages in Bagley — and the unanimous judgment of the chain of cases leading to Bagley — show that the Court treated any withholding as a "violation" without regard to the effect on fairness of the trial. Material exculpatory evidence must be disclosed because it might affect the outcome; the failure to disclose leads to reversal only if the fears have been realized. For this reason Donnelly, supra, distinguished the misconduct at issue there from the constitutional violation of withholding material exculpatory • evidence.

. The Justices who dissented in Bagley argued that the Court should apply the Chapman standard. See 105 S.Ct. at 3391, 3395 (Marshall, J., joined by Brennan, J.).