Law Commons^™

Rethinking Harmless Constitutional Error, A. Kimberley Dayton

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the increasing role of the Chapman Rule and its effect on the harmless error doctrine and outlines a coherent doctrine of constitutional error responsive to the purposes of the various constitutional protections afforded criminal defendants. Part I evaluates the Court's existing harmless error jurisprudence. Part II proposes a harmless error doctrine that, unlike the Court's approach, responds to constitutional values unrelated to truth determination. The last two parts of the Article address two problems precipitated by the use of outcome-oriented rules to define and remedy constitutional error. Part III discusses when such a rule should be used …