463 Mass. 353 - Appellee Commonwealth Brief - Mass Cases

Three years before Van Arsdall was decided, this
Honorable Court promulgated a similar, multi-factored,
approach to determining whether constitutional error is
harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Commonwealth­
v. Mahdi, 388 Mass. 679, 696-697 (1983) (stating five
factors). More recently, in Commonwealth v. Degraca,
447 Mass. 546, 553 (2006), the Court "added" to the
five factors stated in Mahdi a sixth, well-accepted and
widely applied factor: "the importance of the evidence
in the prosecution's case[.]" See Commonwealth v.
McNulty, 458 Mass. 305, 318-320 (2010) (citing to cases
where the independent, "overwhelming," evidence factor
has been employed) .
As Chief Justice Rapoza recently had occasion to
observe, "Chapman remains the touchstone for harmless
error analysis." Commonwealth v. Morales, 76 Mass.
App. Ct. 663, 666 (2010). The "essential" question in
harmless error review -- both under federal and state
law -- has always been, and continues to be, whether
the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt under
the Chapman standard, i.e., "whether the error had, or
might have had, an effect on the jury and whether the
error contributed to or might have contributed to the
verdicts." Commonwealth v. Perrot, 407 Mass. 539, 549
24