02-2874 Aleman v. Sternes

Listen to this article

“The state’s court of appeals did not mention Chapman because it apparently did not think that the federal Constitution had been violated. It applied a state-law standard of harmlessness to what it saw as an error of state law by the prosecutor. Given the trial judge’s anti-inference instruction, this is an appropriate perspective. Even if the instruction were deemed inadequate, and even if the prosecutor’s argument were treated as an implied request to use Aleman’s silence as substantive evidence against him, that fleeting argument was so peripheral to this trial that no substantial and injurious result came to pass. We are confident that the jury convicted Aleman based on the evidence actually introduced, not on speculations about the significance of missing testimony. Thus Aleman’s custody does not violate the federal Constitution, see sec. 2254(a), and he is not entitled to collateral relief.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Conlon, J., Easterbrook, J.