642
Stevens, J., concurring
stare decisis by what has been done in similar situations." Id., at 762.
To apply the Kotteakos standard properly, the reviewing court must, therefore, make a de novo examination of the trial record. The Court faithfully engages in such de novo review today, see ante, at 638-639, just as the plurality did in the dispositive portion of its analysis in Wright v. West, 505 U. S. 277, 295-297 (1992) (opinion of Thomas, J.). The Kotteakos requirement of de novo review of errors that prejudice substantial rights—as all constitutional errors surely do—is thus entirely consistent with the Court's longstanding commitment to the de novo standard of review of mixed questions of law and fact in habeas corpus proceedings. See Wright v. West, 505 U. S., at 299-303 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment).
The purpose of reviewing the entire record is, of course, to consider all the ways that error can infect the course of a trial. Although The Chief Justice properly quotes the phrase applied to the errors in Kotteakos (" 'substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict' "), ante, at 623, 627, 637, 639, we would misread Kotteakos itself if we endorsed only a single-minded focus on how the error may (or may not) have affected the jury's verdict. The habeas court cannot ask only whether it thinks the petitioner would have been convicted even if the constitutional error had not taken place.2 Kotteakos is full of warnings to avoid that result. It requires a reviewing court to decide that "the error did not influence the jury," 328 U. S., at 764, and that "the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error," id., at 765. In a passage that should be kept in mind by all courts that review trial transcripts, Justice Rutledge wrote that the question is not
"were they [the jurors] right in their judgment, regardless of the error or its effect upon the verdict. It is
2 "The inquiry cannot be merely whether there was enough to support the result, apart from the phase affected by the error." Id., at 765.
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