OCTOBER TERM, 1998
Per Curiam
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 98-437. Decided December 14, 1998
Respondent Coleman was convicted in a California court of, inter alia, murder. At the trial's penalty phase, the judge gave a so-called Briggs instruction, then required by state law, which informed the jury of the Governor's power to commute a life sentence without the possibility of parole to a lesser sentence that might include the possibility of parole. The State Supreme Court affirmed on direct appeal. The Federal District Court granted Coleman's subsequent habeas petition, finding that the Briggs instruction violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because it did not mention a limitation on the Governor's power to commute Coleman's sentence. In affirming, the Ninth Circuit rejected the State's argument that the instruction, even if unconstitutional, did not have a substantial and injurious effect or influence on the jury's verdict, as required by Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U. S. 619, 637. It applied instead the rule of Boyde v. California, 494 U. S. 370, 380, finding that there was a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the instruction in a way that prevented it from considering constitutionally relevant evidence.
Held: The Ninth Circuit erred by failing to apply Brecht's harmless-error analysis. Brecht's standard reflects the presumption of finality and legality that attaches to a conviction at the conclusion of direct review. It protects the State's sovereign interest in punishing offenders and its good-faith attempts to honor constitutional rights, while ensuring that the extraordinary remedy of habeas corpus is available to those whom society has grievously wronged. This balance is upset when a federal court sets aside a state-court conviction or sentence without first determining that the error had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury's verdict. The Boyde test is not a harmless-error test at all. It merely asks whether a constitutional error has occurred and does not inquire into the error's actual effect on the jury's verdict.
Certiorari granted; 150 F. 3d 1105, reversed and remanded.
Per Curiam.
After a jury trial in a state court in California, respondent Russell Coleman was convicted of the September 5, 1979,
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