508 U.S. 275, 113 S. Ct. 2078, 124 L. Ed. 2d 182 (1993)
Petitioner Sullivan was charged with first-degree murder in the course of committing an armed robbery at a New Orleans bar, where his alleged accomplice, a convicted felon named Michael Hillhouse, testified at trial pursuant to a grant of immunity and identified petitioner as the murderer.1 Although several other people were present in the bar during the robbery, only one witness testified at trial; this individual, who had been unable to identify either Hillhouse or petitioner at a physical lineup, stated that the pair committed the robbery and that she observed petitioner holding a gun to the victim's head, while other circumstantial evidence supported the conclusion that petitioner was the triggerman.2
In closing argument, defense counsel contended that reasonable doubt existed as to both the identity of the murderer and his intent, but the trial judge instructed the jury with a definition of reasonable doubt that the State later conceded was essentially identical to the one held unconstitutional in Cage v. Louisiana.3 The jury found petitioner guilty of first-degree murder and recommended a death sentence, which the trial court imposed.4
On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of Louisiana determined that the erroneous instruction was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and upheld the conviction, though it remanded for a new sentencing hearing due to ineffectiveness of counsel during the penalty phase.5 The Supreme Court of the United States subsequently granted certiorari to review the case.6
Whether a constitutionally deficient reasonable-doubt instruction may be harmless error?7
The Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury includes the right to a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and a constitutionally deficient reasonable-doubt instruction that misdescribes the burden of proof vitiates all the jury's findings, constituting structural error that is not amenable to harmless-error review.8
No. The Fifth Amendment requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the Sixth Amendment requirement of a jury verdict are interrelated.9 It would not satisfy the Sixth Amendment to have a jury determine that the defendant is probably guilty, and then leave it up to the judge to determine whether he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.10 The jury verdict required by the Sixth Amendment is a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.11 An instruction of the sort given here does not produce such a verdict.12
Since there has been no jury verdict within the meaning of the Sixth Amendment, the entire premise of Chapman review is simply absent.13 Denial of the right to a jury verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is an error of the structural sort whose precise effects are unmeasurable, but without which a criminal trial cannot reliably serve its function.
A constitutionally deficient reasonable-doubt instruction may not be harmless error.14
Related opinions on this issue
Chief Justice Rehnquist concurred in the judgment.15 He accepted that a constitutionally deficient reasonable-doubt instruction amounts to structural error that cannot be harmless regardless of the evidence of guilt.16 He noted similarities between the Cage violation and other instructional errors that are amenable to harmless-error analysis.17
He expressed lingering doubts about whether the ability to conduct harmless-error review is dependent on the existence of beyond a reasonable doubt jury findings.18 Despite these doubts, he agreed that harmless-error analysis cannot be applied in the case of a defective reasonable-doubt instruction consistent with the Sixth Amendment's jury-trial guarantee.19