State v. Boothby

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF KANSAS No. 116,505 STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee, v. CHRISTOPHER BOOTHBY, Appellant. SYLLABUS BY THE COURT 1. An erroneous judicial comment made in front of the jury that is not a jury instruction or legal ruling will, from now on, be reviewed as "judicial comment error" under the constitutional harmlessness test from Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824,

17 L. Ed. 2d 705

(1967). Thus, the State, as the party benefitting from judicial comment error, has the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not affect the outcome of the…