In United States law, a harmless error is a ruling by a

trial judge A trial court or court of first instance is a court having original jurisdiction, in which trials take place. Appeals from the decisions of trial courts are usually made by higher courts with the power of appellate review (appellate courts). Mos ...

that, although mistaken, does not meet the burden for a losing party to reverse the original decision of the trier of fact on

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which 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 clarifying and ...

, or to warrant a new trial. Harmless error is easiest to understand in an evidentiary context. Evidentiary errors are subject to harmless error analysis, under Federal Rule of Evidence 103(a) ("Error may not be predicated upon a ruling which admits or excludes evidence unless a substantial right of the party is affected.") The general burden when arguing that

evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field. In epistemology, evidenc ...

was improperly excluded or included is to show that the proper ruling by the trial judge may have, on the balance of probabilities, resulted in the opposite determination of fact. In the case of ''Earll v. State of Wyoming'', the Wyoming Supreme Court distinguished between reversible error (which requires a conviction be overturned) and harmless error (which does not), as follows:2001 WY 66
29 P.3d 787 In the evidentiary context, a harmless error is usually one where the evidence had no relevance to the issues to be decided by the trier of fact, evidence admitted actually helped the party seeking the reversal, or the remaining evidence was overwhelmingly against the party seeking reversal. For example, a

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...

may try to bolster his case by bringing in an

expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...

to explain the behavior of one of the key witnesses. If the judge allows the expert to testify that there was a reason to explain away inconsistencies in the witness's testimony, this will most likely be grounds for an appeal, as in most cases evidence that only bolsters the

credibility Credibility comprises the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message. Credibility dates back to Aristotle theory of Rhetoric. Aristotle defines rhetoric as the ability to see what is possibly persuasive i ...

of a witness is not admissible. However, if there were a number of other witnesses against the losing party, the

appellate court A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...

may rule that this mistake was of no consequence and that even if the evidence had been excluded, the losing party would have lost.

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are the procedural rules that govern how federal criminal prosecutions are conducted in United States district courts and the general trial courts of the U.S. government. They are the companion to the Feder ...

52(a) provides that "Any error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded." In the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, the harmless error rule is found in Section 6, Rule 51 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure relating to appeals before the

Court of Appeals A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much ...

: "No error in either the admission or the exclusion of evidence and no error or defect in any ruling or order or in anything done or omitted by the trial court or by any of the parties is ground for granting a new trial or for setting aside, modifying, or otherwise disturbing a judgment or order, unless refusal to take such action appears to the court inconsistent with substantial justice. The court at every stage of the proceeding must disregard any error or defect which does not affect the substantial rights of the parties."

References

Appellate review Legal error Criminal law legal terminology {{law-term-stub Law of the United States

See also

References