Shinseki v. Sanders

In Shinseki v. Sanders, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Federal Circuit in finding harmless error in one case, but affirmed it with respect to that issue in a related case. The Court explained concerning the harmless error standard:

“

We have previously warned against courts' determining whether an error is harmless through the use of mandatory presumptions and rigid rules rather than case-specific application of judgment, based upon examination of the record. See Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 760, 66 S. Ct. 1239, 90 L. Ed. 1557 (1946). The federal "harmless-error" statute, now codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2111, tells courts to review cases for errors of law "without regard to errors" that do not affect the parties' "substantial rights." That language seeks to prevent appellate courts from becoming "'impregnable citadels of technicality,'" Kotteakos, 328 U.S., at 759, 66 S. Ct. 1239, 90 L. Ed. 1557. And we have read it as expressing a congressional preference for determining "harmless error" without the use of presumptions insofar as those presumptions may lead courts to find an error harmful, when, in fact, in the particular case before the court, it is not. See id., at 760, 66 S. Ct. 1239, 90 L. Ed. 1557; O'Neal v. McAninch, 513 U.S. 432, 436-437, 115 S. Ct. 992, 130 L. Ed. 2d 947 (1995); see also R. Traynor, The Riddle of Harmless Error 26 (1970) (hereinafter Traynor) (reviewing court normally should "determine whether the error affected the judgment . . . without benefit of such aids as presumptions . . . that expedite fact-finding at the trial").

”

Shinseki v. Sanders, 556 U.S. 396, 407-08 (2009).