282
Rehnquist, C. J., concurring
with consequences that are necessarily unquantifiable and indeterminate, unquestionably qualifies as "structural error."
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, concurring.
In Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U. S. 279 (1991), we divided the class of constitutional violations that may occur during the course of a criminal proceeding, be it at trial or sentencing, into two categories: one consisting of "trial error[s]," which "may . . . be quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented," id., at 307-308 (opinion of Rehnquist, C. J., for the Court), and are amenable to harmless-error analysis; the other consisting of "structural defects," which "affec[t] the framework within which the trial proceeds," id., at 310, and require automatic reversal. There is a "strong presumption" that any error will fall into the first of these categories. Rose v. Clark, 478 U. S. 570, 579 (1986). Thus, it is the rare case in which a constitutional violation will not be subject to harmless-error analysis. See Fulminante, supra, at 309-310 (listing examples of structural errors).
The Court holds today that the reasonable-doubt instruction given at Sullivan's trial, which (it is conceded) violates due process under our decision in Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U. S. 39 (1990) (per curiam), amounts to structural error, and thus cannot be harmless regardless of how overwhelming the evidence of Sullivan's guilt. See ante, at 281-282. It grounds this conclusion in its determination that harmless-error analysis cannot be conducted with respect to error of this sort consistent with the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. We of course have long since rejected the argument that, as a general matter, the Sixth Amendment prohibits the application of harmless-error analysis in determin-
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