Harrington v. California

We held in Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, that “before a federal constitutional error can be held harmless, the court must be able to declare a belief that it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 24. We said that, although “there are some constitutional rights so basic to a fair trial that their infraction can never be treated as harmless error” (id., at 23), not all *252“trial errors which violate the Constitution automatically call for reversal.” Ibid.

The question whether the alleged error in the present case was “harmless” under the rule of Chapman arose in a state trial for…