Court Opinion

ID: 9756992
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:13:00.867628+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:30.771947
License: Public Domain

Murphy, G. J.,

specially concurring:

I agree with the majority that the testimony in question was improperly admitted into evidence, that the error was plainly prejudicial, and that a new trial is mandated. I cannot, however, subscribe to the majority’s view that on appellate review of criminal convictions, justice somehow dictates that there must be one uniform standard for testing whether an error committed at the trial was harmless, without regard to whether the error was of constitutional dimension or not, and that that test is as set forth by the Supreme Court in Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), a case involving an error of constitutional magnitude. There, the Supreme Court held that unless the appellate court could declare a belief beyond a reasonable doubt that there was no reasonable possibility *662that the error might have contributed to the conviction, it could not be deemed harmless.
In Chapman,, the Supreme Court pointed out that none of the numerous state or federal harmless-error statutes or rules prohibiting appellate courts from reversing judgments for1 errors which did not affect the substantial rights of the parties distinguished between errors of constitutional and nonconstitutional dimension. These rules and statutes, the Supreme Court said in Chapman,, serve “a very useful purpose insofar as they block setting aside convictions for small errors or defects that have little, if any, likelihood of having changed the result of the trial'.”' 386 U. S. at 22. In-concluding that the federal constitution required a more stringent test in cases involving federal constitutional error, the Court in Chapman did not purport to override its own authority governing the test applicable to errors of nonconstitutional magnitude, as contained in Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U. S. 750, 66 S. Ct. 1239, 90 L. Ed. 1557 (1946). That case, as the majority properly notes, enunciates the .test in terms far less, stringent than those outlined in Chapman, viz., if an appellate court is unable to conclude “with fair assurance” that “the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error” and “that substantial rights were . . . affected,” it could not find the error harmless. 328 U. S. at 764-65.
Our own cases, set out in the opinion of the majority, have always closely followed the rationale of Kotteakos. We have in effect said in cases involving nonconstitutional error that the determinative factor is whether the erroneous ruling, in relation to the totality of the evidence, played a significant role in influencing the rendition of the verdict to the prejudice of the defendant. That this test is far less exacting than the constitutional standard contained in Chapman is clear to me, as indeed it was to the majority in 1974 when, in Smith v. State, 273 Md. 152, 328 A. 2d 274, a case involving error not of constitutional dimension, the Court observed that “Chapman applies only to violations of federal constitutional rights, . . . that the issue here does not rise to that level . . . [and that] the test [for determining harmless *663error in nonconstitutional cases] is whether the erroneous exclusion of evidence results in prejudice to the complaining party.” 273 Md. at 163. It is true that in State v. Johnson, 275 Md. 291, 339 A. 2d 289 (1975) and State v. Babb, 258 Md. 547, 267 A. 2d 190 (1970), we did not give explicit recognition to the fact that a distinction exists between constitutional and nonconstitutional error in applying our rules for testing the existence of harmless error; in neither of those cases, however, was the issue raised and at most they represent an indiscriminate failure to apply the proper verbiage as recognized in Smith v. State, supra.
The majority makes a grave mistake in my judgment when it fails to recognize the difference between the federal constitutional harmless-error rule mandated by Chapman and its progeny and the less exacting harmless-error rule so long applicable to errors not of constitutional magnitude. The distinction, and the reasons for it, have not escaped courts in other jurisdictions. Indeed, the Court of Appeals of New York, in People v. Crimmins, 326 N.E.2d 787, 36 N.Y.2d 230 (1975), recently expressed views similar to those which I have just outlined. Other courts are in complete accord. See United States v. Arias-Diaz, 497 F. 2d 165 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Harbolt, 491 F. 2d 78 (5th Cir. 1974); Chase v. Crisp, 523 F. 2d 595 (10th Cir. 1975); United States v. Lee, 489 F. 2d 1242 (D.C. Cir. 1973); United States v. Harpel, 493 F. 2d 346 (10th Cir. 1974); United States v. Jackson, 482 F. 2d 1167 (10th Cir. 1973); United States v. Daughtry, 502 F. 2d 1019 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Bettenhausen, 499 F. 2d 1223 (10th Cir. 1974); United States v. Steinkoenig, 487 F. 2d 225 (5th Cir. 1973).
I am authorized to state that Judges Smith and Levine concur in the views here expressed.