法律翻译 | 无害错误审查的语境分析法

译者 | 高兴，香港大学LL.M.

审稿 | Cindy Wong，University of Leeds LL.B.

          李梓源，英国布里斯托大学 LL.M.

排版 | 陈远航，美国西北大学LL.M.

责编 | 陈远航，美国西北大学LL.M.

Harmless error review is profoundly important, but arguably broken, in the form that courts currently employ it in criminal cases. One significant reason for this brokenness lies in the dissonance between the reductionism of modern harmless error methodology and the diverse normative ambitions of criminal procedure. Nearly all harmless error rules used by courts today focus exclusively on whether the procedural error under review affected the result of a judicial proceeding. I refer to these rules as “result-based harmless error review.” The singular preoccupation of result-based harmless error review with the outputs of criminal processes stands in marked contrast with criminal procedure’s broader ethical vision, which also encompasses non-result-related interests such as providing defendants with space for autonomous decision making, enforcing compliance with nondiscrimination norms, and making transparent the inner workings of criminal justice.

无害错误审查具有深远的意义，但以目前法院在刑事案件中适用的形式来看，它可以说已经被破坏了。被破坏的一个重要原因在于，现代无害错误规则的简化主义方法论与刑事诉讼程序的各种规范追求之间的不协调。当今法院使用的近乎所有无害错误规则都只关注被审查的程序性错误是否影响了司法程序的结果。我把这些规则称为 “以结果为导向的无害错误审查”。以结果为导向的无害错误审查只关注刑事程序的结果，这与刑事程序更广泛的道德愿景形成了鲜明对比，后者还包括与结果无关的利益，如为被告提供自主决策的空间，强制遵守非歧视性规范，以及使刑事司法的内部运作透明化。

The vast scholarship relating to result-based harmless error review, though deeply critical of its current role in the administration of justice, has not put forward an alternative method of harmless error review that courts might realistically consider using. Commentators in this area have devoted much of their energy toward persuading courts to exempt large swaths of criminal procedure from harmless error review entirely and thus to require automatic reversal for errors involving exempted rules. Instead, courts have done just the opposite by subjecting an ever-expanding list of errors to harmless error review, and there is no reason to think this trend will abate in the foreseeable future.

与以结果为导向的无害错误审查有关的大量学术研究，尽管对其目前在司法行政中的作用提出了严厉的批评，但尚未提出法院可以实际考虑使用的无害错误审查的替代方法。这一领域的评论员将他们的大部分精力用于说服法院在大量的刑事诉讼程序中完全免除无害错误审查，从而要求对适用豁免规则的错误进行自动撤销。相反，法院反其道而行之，对越来越多的错误进行无害错误审查，而且我们没有理由认为这种趋势在可预见的将来会有所减弱。

（图片来源于网络）

I attempt in this Article to chart a different course. My proposal, called “contextual harmless error review,” has two essential features. First, it would assess harm in relation to the constellation of interests served by the particular procedural rule that was infringed and would not, as under existing law, automatically confine the harmless error inquiry to estimating the error’s effect on the outcome. Second, contextual harmless error review would examine whether the error harmed the interests identified in the first step of the analysis to a degree substantial enough to justify reversal.

我在这篇文章中试图制定一条不同的路径。我的提议名为 “语境化的无害错误审查”，其有两个基本特征。首先，它将根据被侵犯的特定程序规则所服务的利益组合来评估损害，而不是像现有法律那样，将无害错误的调查范围机械地限制在评估错误对结果的影响。其次，语境化的无害错误审查将审查错误是否损害了第一步分析中所确定的利益，以及这是否达到能够合理撤销的程度。