Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 12 (1999)

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12

NEDER v. UNITED STATES

Opinion of the Court

instructed, and consequently did not render a finding, on the actual element of the offense, the defendant's trial did not result in a "complete verdict" any more than in this case. Yet we held there that harmless-error analysis was appropriate. Id., at 502-503.

Similarly, in Carella, the jury was instructed to presume that the defendant "embezzled [a] vehicle" and "[i]nten[ded] to commit theft" if the jury found that the defendant failed to return a rental car within a certain number of days after the expiration of the rental period. 491 U. S., at 264 (internal quotation marks omitted). Again, the jury's finding of guilt cannot be seen as a "complete verdict" because the conclusive presumption "directly foreclosed independent jury consideration of whether the facts proved established certain elements of the offenses." Id., at 266. As in Pope, however, we held that the unconstitutional conclusive presumption was "subject to the harmless-error rule." 491 U. S., at 266.

And in Roy, a federal habeas case involving a state-court murder conviction, the trial court erroneously failed to instruct the jury that it could convict the defendant as an aider and abettor only if it found that the defendant had the "intent or purpose" of aiding the confederate's crime. 519 U. S., at 3 (internal quotation marks and emphasis omitted). Despite that omission, we held that "[t]he case before us is a case for application of the 'harmless error' standard." Id., at 5.

The Government argues, correctly we think, that the absence of a "complete verdict" on every element of the offense establishes no more than that an improper instruction on an element of the offense violates the Sixth Amendment's jury trial guarantee. The issue here, however, is not whether a jury instruction that omits an element of the offense was error (a point that is uncontested, see supra, at 8), but whether the error is subject to harmless-error analysis. We

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