delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent is in petitioner’s custody pursuant to a conviction for second-degree murder. The question presented to us is whether the New York State trial judge’s failure to instruct the jury on the issue of causation was constitutional error requiring a Federal District Court to grant habeas corpus relief. Disagreeing with a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, we hold that it was not.
On the evening of December 30, 1970, respondent and his codefendant encountered a thoroughly intoxicated man named Stafford in a bar in Rochester, N. Y.1 After observing Stafford display at least two $100 bills,2 they decided to rob him and agreed to drive him to a nearby town. While in the car, respondent slapped Stafford several times, took his money, and, in a search for concealed funds, forced Stafford to lower his trousers and remove his boots. They then abandoned him on an unlighted, rural road, still in a state of partial undress, and without his coat or his glasses. The temperature was near zero, visibility was obscured by blowing snow, and snow banks flanked the roadway. The time was between 9:30 and 9:40 p. m.
At about 10 p. m., while helplessly seated in a traffic lane about a quarter mile from the nearest lighted building, Stafford was struck by a speeding pickup truck. The driver testified that while he was traveling 50 miles per hour in a 40-mile zone, the first of two approaching cars flashed its lights — • presumably as a warning which he did not understand. Immediately after the cars passed, the driver saw Stafford sitting in the road with his hands in the air. The driver neither swerved nor braked his vehicle before it hit Stafford. Stafford was pronounced dead upon arrival at the local hospital.
*148Respondent and his accomplice were convicted of grand larceny, robbery, and second-degree murder.3 Only the conviction of murder, as defined in N. Y. Penal Law § 125.25 (2) (McKinney 1975), is now challenged. That statute provides that “[a] person is guilty of murder in the second degree" when “[u]nder circumstances evincing a depraved indifference to human life, he recklessly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person, and thereby causes the death of another person.” (Emphasis added.)
Defense counsel argued that it was the negligence of the truckdriver, rather than the defendants’ action, that had caused Stafford’s death, and that the defendants could not have anticipated the fatal accident.4 On the other hand, the prosecution argued that the death was foreseeable and would not have occurred but for the conduct of the defendants who *149therefore were the cause of death.5 Neither party requested the trial judge to instruct the jury on the meaning of the statutory requirement that the defendants’ conduct “thereby cause [d] the death of another person,” and no such instruction was given. The trial judge did, however, read the indictment and the statute to the jury and explained the meaning of some of the statutory language. He advised the jury that a “person acts recklessly with respect to a result or to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense ivhen he is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that such result will occur or that such circumstance exists.” App. 89 (emphasis added).
The Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court affirmed respondent’s conviction. People v. Kibbe, 41 App. Div. 2d 228, 342 N. Y. S. 2d 386 (1973). Although respondent did not challenge the sufficiency of the instructions to the jury in that court, Judge Cardamone dissented on the ground that the trial court’s charge did not explain the issue of causation *150or include an adequate discussion of the necessary mental state. That judge expressed the opinion that “the jury, upon proper instruction, could have concluded that the victim’s death by an automobile was a remote and intervening cause.” 6
The New York Court of Appeals also affirmed. 35 N. Y. 2d 407, 321 N. E. 2d 773 (1974). It identified the causation issue as the only serious question raised by the appeal, and then rejected the contention that the conduct of the driver of the pickup truck constituted an intervening cause which relieved the defendants of criminal responsibility for Stafford’s death. The court held that it was “not necessary that the ultimate harm be intended by the actor. It will suffice if it can be said beyond a reasonable doubt, as indeed it can be here said, that the ultimate harm is something which should have been foreseen as being reasonably related to the acts of the accused.” 7 The court refused to consider the adequacy of the charge to the jury because that question had not been raised in the trial court.
*151Respondent then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York, relying on 28 U. S. C. § 2254. The District Court held that the respondent’s attack on the sufficiency of the charge failed to raise a question of constitutional dimension and that, without more, “the charge is not reviewable in a federal habeas corpus proceeding.” App. 21.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, 534 F. 2d 493 (1976). In view of the defense strategy which consistently challenged the sufficiency of the proof of causation, the majority held that the failure to make any objection to the jury instructions was not a deliberate bypass precluding federal habeas corpus relief,8 but rather was an “obviously inadvertent” omission. Id., at 497. On the merits, the court held that since the Constitution requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime, In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364, the failure to instruct the jury on an essential element as complex as the causation issue in this case created an impermissible risk that the jury had not made a finding that the Constitution requires.9
*152Because the Court of Appeals decision appeared to conflict with this Court's holding in Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, we granted certiorari, 429 U. S. 815.
Respondent argues that the decision of the Court of Appeals should be affirmed on either of two independent grounds: (1) that the omission of an instruction on causation created the danger that the jurors failed to make an essential factual determination as required by Winship; or (2) assuming that they did reach the causation question, they did so without adequate guidance and might have rendered a different verdict under proper instructions. A fair evaluation of the omission in the context of the entire record requires rejection of both arguments.10
*153I
The Court has held “that the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” In re Winship, supra, at 364. One of the facts which the New York statute required the prosecution to prove is that the defendants’ conduct caused the death of Stafford. As the New York Court of Appeals held, the evidence was plainly sufficient to prove that fact beyond a reasonable doubt. It is equally clear that the record requires us to conclude that the jury made such a finding.
There can be no question about the fact that the jurors were informed that the case included a causation issue that they had to decide. The element of causation was stressed in the arguments of both counsel. The statutory language, which the trial judge read to the jury, expressly refers to the requirement that defendants’ conduct “cause [d] the death of another person.” The indictment tracks the statutory language; it was read to the jurors and they were given a copy for use during their deliberations. The judge instructed the jury that all elements of the crime must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Whether or not the arguments of counsel correctly characterized the law applicable to the causation issue, they surely made it clear to the jury that such an issue *154had to be decided. It follows that the objection predicated on this Court's holding in Winship is without merit.
II
An appraisal of the significance of an error in the instructions to the jury requires a comparison of the instructions which were actually given with those that should have been given. Orderly procedure requires that the respective adversaries' views as to how the jury should be instructed be presented to the trial judge in time to enable him to deliver an accurate charge and to minimize the risk of committing reversible error.11 It is thé rare case in which an improper instruction will justify reversal of a criminal conviction when no objection has been made in the trial court.12
The burden of demonstrating that an erroneous instruction was so prejudicial that it will support a collateral attack on the constitutional validity of a state court's judgment is even greater than the showing réquired to establish plain error on direct appeal.13 The question in such a collateral proceeding is “whether the ailing instruction by itself so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process," Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S., at 147, not merely whether “the instruction is undesirable, erroneous, or even 'universally condemned,' " id., at 146.
*155In this case, the respondent’s burden is especially heavy because no erroneous instruction was given; his claim of prejudice is based on the failure to give any explanation — beyond the reading of the statutory language itself — of the causation element. An omission, or an incomplete instruction, is less likely to be prejudicial than a misstatement of the law. Since this omission escaped notice on the record until Judge Cardamone filed his dissenting opinion at the intermediate appellate level, the probability that it substantially affected the jury deliberations seems remote.
Because respondent did not submit a draft instruction on the causation issue to the trial judge, and because the New York courts apparently had no previous occasion to construe this aspect of the murder statute, we cannot know with certainty precisely what instruction should have been given as a matter of New York law. We do know that the New York Court of Appeals found no reversible error in this case; and its discussion of the sufficiency of the evidence gives us guidance about the kind of causation instruction that would have been acceptable.
The New York Court of Appeals concluded that the evidence of causation was sufficient because it can be said beyond a reasonable doubt that the “ultimate harm” was “something which should have been foreseen as being reasonably related to the acts of the accused.” It is not entirely clear whether the court’s reference to “ultimate harm” merely required that Stafford’s death was foreseeable, or, more narrowly, that his death by a speeding vehicle was foreseeable.14 In either event, the court was satisfied that the “ultimate harm” was one which “should have been foreseen.” Thus, an adequate instruction would have told the jury that if the *156ultimate harm should have been foreseen as being reasonably-related to defendants’ conduct, that conduct should be regarded as having caused the death of Stafford.
The significance of the omission of such an instruction may be evaluated by comparison with the instructions that were given. One of the elements of respondent’s offense is that he acted “recklessly,” supra, at 148, 149. By returning a guilty verdict, the jury necessarily found, in accordance with its instruction on recklessness, that respondent was “aware of and consciously disregard[ed] a substantial and unjustifiable risk” 15 that death would occur. A person who is “aware of and consciously disregards” a substantial risk must also foresee the ultimate harm that the risk entails. Thus, the jury’s determination that the respondent acted recklessly necessarily included a determination that the ultimate harm was foreseeable to him.
In a strict sense, an additional instruction on foreseeability would not have been cumulative because it would have related to an element of the offense not specifically covered in the instructions given. But since it is logical to assume that the jurors would have responded to an instruction on causation consistently with their determination of the issues that were comprehensively explained, it is equally logical to conclude that such an instruction would not have affected their verdict.16 Accordingly, we reject the suggestion that the omission of more complete instructions on the causation issue “so *157infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violated due process.” Even if we were to make the unlikely assumption that the jury might have reached a different verdict pursuant to an additional instruction, that possibility is too speculative to justify the conclusion that constitutional error was committed.
The judgment is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.