Frank Parasmo v. United States

In Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1 (1999), this Court held that where a jury was erroneously instructed on an element of the charged offense, a reviewing court may deem the error harmless if it “concludes beyond a reasonable doubt that the omitted element was uncontested and supported by overwhelming evidence.” Id. at 17 (emphasis added). The circuits have developed two conflicting approaches to applying Neder in cases where the element at issue was contested. Some courts, including the divided Second Circuit panel below, weigh the evidence on the disputed element themselves and deem an error harmless if they deem the government’s evidence sufficiently strong. Other courts ask only whether the defendant’s evidence could rationally support acquittal, without weighing it against the government’s evidence. The confusion has led to irreconcilable decisions regarding harmless error, and, as Judge Robinson explained in dissent below, has led to a clear circuit split regarding the harmlessness of jury instructions that violate this Court’s decision in Ruan v. United States, 597 U.S. 450 (2022). The question presented is: Where a jury convicts a defendant after being erroneously instructed on an element of the offense that the defendant plausibly contested, do this Court’s precedents and the Sixth Amendment permit an appellate court to find the error harmless based on the court’s assessment of the strength of the government’s evidence?