Cite as: 507 U. S. 619 (1993)
White, J., dissenting
I
A
Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18 (1967), established the federal nature of the harmless-error standard to be applied when constitutional rights are at stake. Such rights, we stated, are "rooted in the Bill of Rights, offered and championed in the Congress by James Madison, who told the Congress that the 'independent' federal courts would be the 'guardians of those rights.' " Id., at 21 (footnote omitted). Thus,
"[w]hether a conviction for crime should stand when a State has failed to accord federal constitutionally guaranteed rights is every bit as much of a federal question as what particular federal constitutional provisions themselves mean, what they guarantee, and whether they have been denied. With faithfulness to the constitutional union of the States, we cannot leave to the States the formulation of the authoritative laws, rules, and remedies designed to protect people from infractions by the States of federally guaranteed rights." Ibid. (emphasis added).
Chapman, it is true, never expressly identified the source of this harmless-error standard. But, whether the standard be characterized as a "necessary rule" of federal law, ibid., or criticized as a quasi-constitutional doctrine, see id., at 46, 51 (Harlan, J., dissenting), the Court clearly viewed it as essential to the safeguard of federal constitutional rights. Otherwise, there would have been no justification for imposing the rule on state courts. Cf. id., at 48-51 (Harlan, J., dissenting). As far as I can tell, the majority does not question Chapman's vitality on direct review and, therefore, the federal and constitutional underpinnings on which it rests.
That being so, the majority's conclusion is untenable.
Under Chapman, federal law requires reversal of a state
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