Cumulative effect of harmless errors is still harmless

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It is axiomatic that nothing plus nothing equals nothing.

But sometimes, something plus something, plus something, plus something more, still adds up to nothing.

In the case of Ronell E. Harris, even though the State committed numerous discovery violations, improper evidence was admitted, and the trial court erred in not sanctioning the State for its errors, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that each error was harmless, and the cumulative effect of numerous harmless errors don’t add up to a new trial.

Writing on Thursday for a unanimous Supreme Court, Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson concluded, “The State has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the aggregated errors did not, under the totality of the circumstances, contribute to the verdict against the defendant or undermine confidence in the verdict.”

The justices agreed with Harris that the State violated the discovery statute, sec. 971.23, by not disclosing before trial that fingerprint testing had been performed on evidence, but that no fingerprints belonging to the defendant were found.

The Supreme Court also agreed with Harris that the discovery statute was violated by the State’s failure to disclose a statement Harris had made.

The justices further agreed with Harris that it was error to admit evidence of the nature of paperwork belonging to the defendant – criminal court documents – rather than just presenting evidence that generic paperwork linked defendant to the premises in which narcotics were found.

In addition, the Supreme Court agreed that it was error for the trial court not to sanction the State by instructing the jury that the numerous delays in trial caused by these various errors were the fault of the State. Instead, the trial court gave a neutral explanation to the jury that did not assign blame to either party.

Abrahamson wrote, “A defendant should not be surprised by two unproduced reports that were requested, were subject to discovery, and were in the prosecutor’s possession. … [T]he circuit court should have exercised its discretion to mitigate the effect, if any, of the State’s failure to fulfill its statutory discovery obligations by advising the jury pursuant to sec. 971.23(7m)(b).”

However, the Supreme Court concluded that each error in itself was harmless, and that even when they were all added up, they were still harmless. The court agreed with the State that the jury would have found Harris guilty even without all the errors.

The case is State v. Ronell E. Harris, No. 2006AP882-CR.