an error by a judge in the conduct of a trial which an appellate court finds is
not sufficient for it to reverse or modify the lower court's judgment at trial.
Harmless error would include a technical error which has no bearing on the outcome
of the trial, an error that was corrected (such as allowing testimony and then ordering
it stricken and admonishing the jury to ignore it), the issue affected by the error
was found in the appellant's favor (such as hearsay evidence on premeditation, but
the jury found no premeditation), and the appeals court's view that even though
there were errors the appealing party could not have won in trial in any event.
This last gives the appeals court broad latitude to rule that errors were not significant.
It is frustrating to appealing parties and their attorneys for the appeals court
to rule that there were indeed several errors, and then say "However, they appear
to be harmless. "
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