United States law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

, a reversible error is an error of sufficient gravity to warrant reversal of a

judgment Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of given circumstances to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. In an informal context, a judgement is opinion expressed as fact. In the context of a legal trial ...

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

. It is an error by the trier of

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

(

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

), or the trier of fact (the

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make Question of fact, findings of fact, and render an impartiality, impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty or Judgmen ...

, or the judge if it is a

bench trial A bench trial is a trial by judge, as opposed to a jury. The term applies most appropriately to any administrative hearing in relation to a summary offense to distinguish the type of trial. Many legal systems ( Roman, Islamic) use bench trials ...

), or

malfeasance Misfeasance, nonfeasance, and malfeasance are types of failure to discharge public obligations existing by common law, custom, or statute. The Carta de Logu caused Eleanor of Arborea to be remembered as one of the first lawmakers to set up t ...

by one of the trying attorneys, which results in an unfair

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

. It is to be distinguished from

harmless error In United States law, a harmless error is a ruling by a trial judge that, although mistaken, does not meet the burden for a losing party to reverse the original decision of the trier of fact on appeal, or to warrant a new trial. Harmless error i ...

s which do not rise to a level which brings the validity of the judgment into question and thus do not lead to a reversal upon appeal.

Reversible error criteria

A finding of reversible error requires that one or more of the appellant's "substantial rights" be affected, or the evidence in question be of such character as to have affected the outcome of the trial. (See e.g.,
Montana Petroleum Tank Release Compensation Bd. v. Crumley's, Inc.
', 174 P.3d 948 (Mont. 2008).) The criteria for determining what constitutes a "substantial right" is somewhat vague, however, being that it varies from case to case, each presenting a slightly different interpretation of which rights are essential, or significant enough to warrant this sort of legal protection. Therefore, reversible errors resulting from the violation of an individual's "substantial right(s)" must be considered on an individual basis.

Examples of reversible errors

Reversible errors include, but are not limited to: *Judge did not follow the law. * seating a juror who has manifested impermissible bias to one party or the other, *admitting

evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the proposition is truth, true. The exact definition and role of evidence vary across different fields. In epistemology, evidence is what J ...

which should have been excluded under the rules of evidence, *excluding evidence which a party was entitled to have admitted, *giving an incorrect legal instruction to a jury, *failure to declare a

mistrial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, ...

when continuing with trial amounts to a denial of due process, or *conversely, granting a mistrial in a criminal case if the defendant objects, ''unless'' the grant was necessary to correct manifest injustice. *hearing a case the court does not have jurisdiction to hear. *allowing a case to proceed that was properly time-barred. If an

appellate court An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...

determines that reversible error occurred, it may reverse the judgement of the lower court and order a new trial on such terms and conditions as are found to be just. Technically, attorney misconduct is not reversible error. Failure of the judge to remedy it during the trial is reversible error. In cases such as unfairly or illegally concealing evidence, there is no error on the part of the court but the court's decision may still be vacated and the matter returned for a new trial, because there is no other way for justice to be granted.

Notes

Appellate review Legal error {{law-stub