Washington state
does anyone have any cases where a court error caused a defense strategy change and it was found reversible error?
in this case the judge allowed a proof of service that the defense objected to. The defense knew for a fact that he was right and had planned for it to not be allowed in court so he planned his defense around it. this piece of evidence contradicted what the defense had planned so at the last minute he had to change his entire strategy on how to argue the case.
The defendant was being charged with violating terms contained in the package he was "served".
In Appeals court the prosecutor agreed that they/court had violated the defendants 6th amendment rights by allowing this evidence but that it was harmless error because the defendant still knew about the upcoming hearing so he must have been served and therefore knew about the rules that were contained in the package even if they didn't have proof he had gotten it.
Now my argument is that
A: being served isn't the only way for a person to know that a hearing is coming up. Just for example I can look up a persons name on the computer and see a hearing coming up BEFORE a document has even left the court to be served on a person. Now this doesn't mean the person being served knows that there are rules they must follow but only that there is court coming up.
B: that because the POS was allowed the defense couldn't go ahead with the argument they had planned because the POS was in direct conflict of it and they instead had to instead battle with the POS in court, thus changing his strategy at the last minute.
I cant seem to find any cases were a court error was found reversible because it drastically changed the defense strategy, maybe I'm not looking in the right places.
I also don't know anything about harmless error analysis or what the rules are for finding if an error was harmless or reversible. I keep seeing reference to the "analysis" but cant seem to find if it is for only certain types of cases, I cant seem to find Washington courts specific rules on Harmless/reversible errors and I can only find a few WA cases that reference that WA rules on errors are in effect the same as the federal rules.
Thanks for the help guys.

