In the 1990s, the Supreme Court ruled that „a harmless error analysis is not triggered until the reviewing court finds that an error was made.” Yet the courts routinely ignore this decision, ignore the issue of error, and conclude that any error, assuming it occurred, was „harmless.” By refusing to rule on the existence of a constitutional error, the courts fail in one of their most fundamental functions: to clarify the law governing the actions of police, prosecutors, defence lawyers and trial judges. Claim #3: Eliminating trivial errors could weaken constitutional protections. Under U.S. law, a minor error is a trial judge`s decision that, while incorrect, does not place the onus on a losing party to overturn the original decision of the place of appeal or justify a new trial. Harmless errors are easier to understand in an evidentiary context. Errors of evidence are subject to harmless error analysis under Federal Rule of Evidence 103(a) („Errors shall not be based on a decision that admits or excludes evidence unless an essential right of the party is affected.” [1]) The general burden of proof in arguing that the evidence was wrongly excluded or included is to show that the trial judge`s appropriate decision, after weighing the probabilities, may have led to a finding of fact to the contrary. Every day, the doctrine of „harmless error” allows police and prosecutors to act with impunity, and it steals lives and freedom from people in our prisons. What can we do to grow back? Here are some ideas: One of the main justifications for „harmless mistakes” is the need to preserve „scarce legal resources.” In other words, trial judges are busy with an extensive list of criminal cases, and if appellate courts overturned many convictions, trial judges would have more to do. As one researcher warns, „the resulting increase in the number of new trials would significantly undermine the efficiency of justice.” Another justification for „harmless errors” is that it „promotes public respect for the criminal process by emphasizing the underlying fairness of the trial.” But this respect is not deserved. For most people, a confirmed belief signals the absence of errors. To the extent that the confirmation of unlawful convictions commands public respect for our punitive bureaucracy, this respect is not a convincing justification for „harmless mistakes,” but a symptom of its insidious consequences. It keeps the population in the dark about widespread constitutional violations and reduces the risk of resistance. In the Philippines, the harmless error rule is contained in section 6 of Rule 51 of the 1997 Code of Civil Procedure on appeals to the Court of Appeal: „No error in the admission or exclusion of evidence and no error or deficiency in any decision or order or in any act or omission of the court of first instance or of any party, is grounds for authorization of a new trial or for setting aside, modifying or setting aside a judgment or order, unless the refusal to take such action would appear to the court to be incompatible with substantive justice.
At any stage of the proceedings, the court shall rule out any defect or defect which does not affect the essential rights of the parties. The exact rules of „harmless error” are confusing and depend on the type of error that occurred. If the error does not infringe a constitutional right, a court can only overturn a conviction if the error had a „material or prejudicial effect or influence on the jury`s decision.” If the error affects a constitutional right, the court must decide whether there is a „structural error” or a „trial error”. Structural flaws such as denial of the right to representation, an impartial judge or a jury trial can never be „harmless”; They lead to an automatic reversal. For procedural errors, such as the admission of illegally seized evidence, a court must overturn the decision unless the government proves that the error was „harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Even decades after Chapman, determining whether a constitutional error is harmless remains a complicated task. Indeed, harmless errors do not have a single and uniform definition. Courts must use one of two different criteria – and sometimes a third that combines both. The first criterion is whether the error influenced the judgment. If the error did not have even a small impact on judgment, it is harmless. The second test takes into account the evidence of guilt found in the trial protocol. When the evidence is overwhelming and untainted, the guilt of the defendant is considered the most important factor, and the error is harmless. The third test is a balancing test in which the court weighs the impact of the error on the verdict against the impartial evidence.
The court can highlight both elements of this test, and the test result will reflect what is considered stronger. Before concluding that an error affected a defendant`s substantive right and therefore requires the setting aside of a conviction, we must conclude that, based on the overall record, there is a reasonable possibility that the verdict might have been more favourable to the defendant if the error had not been the error. [3] 5. The harmless error gives our punitive bureaucracy a façade of legitimacy. 4. The harmless error usurps the role of juries. Claim #2: The harmless error fosters public respect for criminal proceedings. When the court issued its decision, it rejected any suggestion that the courts „wink at the deliberate and repeated unfair interrogations of prosecutors under the rubric of harmless error.” But the court later upheld the conviction, concluding that the prosecutor was „right to rely on the doctrine of harmless error.” In general, the Burger and Rehnquist courts did not radically change the substance of the constitutional protections established by Warren Court, as many had predicted.