Harmless Error

39 Pages Posted: 26 Jun 2000

See all articles by William M. Landes

William M. Landes

University of Chicago Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Richard A. Posner

University of Chicago Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 2000

Abstract

This paper presents an economic model of the harmful error rule in criminal appeals. We test the implications of the model against legal doctrines governing reversible and nonreversible error of criminal convictions and on a sample of more than 1000 criminal defendants who appealed their convictions in the U.S. courts of appeals between 1996 and 1998. Among the more important theoretical and empirical findings of the paper are the following. Intentional prosecutor and judge errors are more likely to be found harmful and lead the appellate court to reverse the defendant's conviction than are inadvertent errors. Prosecutor errors are more likely to be forgiven than judge errors, both because judge errors are likely to have greater influence on jurors and because a judge who has failed to correct a prosecutor's error (even an intentional one) has quite likely also failed to correct an offsetting defense error. Errors are less likely to be harmful when defendants face a higher error-free probability of conviction. Appellate courts are more likely to publish an opinion when they are reversing the lower court since the likelihood that the case presents a difficult issue on which precedent would be helpful is greater when there is disagreement among judges.

JEL Classification: K14

Suggested Citation

Landes, William M. and Posner, Richard A., Harmless Error (June 2000). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=233929 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.233929

William M. Landes (Contact Author)

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Richard A. Posner

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