2
Syllabus
stitutional errors, reviewing courts must apply harmless-error analysis. An instruction that omits an element of the offense differs markedly from the constitutional violations this Court has found to defy harmless-error review, for it does not necessarily render a trial fundamentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or innocence. Omitting an element can easily be analogized to improperly instructing the jury on the element, an error that is subject to harmless-error analysis, Johnson v. United States, 520 U. S. 461, 469. The conclusion reached here is consistent with Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U. S. 275, on which Neder principally relies. The strand of Sullivan's reasoning that supports his position that harmless-error review is precluded where a constitutional error prevents a jury from rendering a "complete verdict" on every element of an offense cannot be squared with the cases in which this Court has applied harmless-error analysis to instructional errors, see, e. g., Pope v. Illinois, 481 U. S. 497. The restrictive approach that Neder gleaned from Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U. S. 73, a concurring opinion in Carella v. California, 491 U. S. 263, and language in Sullivan—under which an instructional omission, misdescription, or conclusive presumption can be subject to harmless-error analysis only in three rare situations—is also mistaken. Neder underreported $5 million on his tax returns, failed to contest materiality at trial, and does not suggest that he would introduce any evidence bearing upon that issue if so allowed. Reversal without consideration of the error's effect upon the verdict would send the case back for re-trial focused not on materiality but on contested issues on which the jury was properly charged. The Sixth Amendment does not require the Court to veer away from settled precedent to reach such a result. Pp. 8-15.
(b) The District Court's failure to submit the tax offense's materiality element to the jury was harmless error. A constitutional error is harmless when it appears "beyond a reasonable doubt that the error . . . did not contribute to the verdict obtained." Chapman v. California, supra, at 24. No jury could find that Neder's failure to report substantial income on his tax returns was not material. The evidence was so overwhelming that he did not even contest that issue. Where, as here, a reviewing court concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that the omitted element was uncontested and supported by overwhelming evidence, such that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the error, the erroneous instruction is properly found to be harmless. Neder's dispute of this conclusion is simply another form of the argument that the failure to instruct on any element of the crime is not subject to harmless-error analysis. The harmless-error inquiry in this case must be essentially the same as the analysis used in other cases that deal
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