Title: State v. Dix

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 90-072

                              JUNE TERM, 1991


State of Vermont                  }          APPEALED FROM:
                                  }
                                  }
     v.                           }          District Court of Vermont,
                                  }          Unit No. 1, Windham Circuit
                                  }
Steven B. Dix                     }
                                  }          DOCKET NO. 185-1-89 WmCr


    In the above entitled cause the Clerk will enter:


     The court's failure to instruct the jury that the presumption of
innocence is "a piece of evidence that should be considered with all the
other evidence" was not error.

     The court's instruction here was as follows:

            The Defendant is not under any obligation to prove
          that he is innocent.  The burden is on the State to
          prove beyond a reasonable doubt if it can that he is
          guilty.

            One is presumed to be innocent and you are bound in
          your consideration of the evidence to give him the
          benefit of that presumption and to remember that the
          State must overcome the presumption of innocence by
          proof to your satisfaction that he is guilty beyond a
          reasonable doubt.

             This presumption continues throughout the trial and
          throughout deliberations, right down to the time when
          all of you agree upon a verdict, whatever it may be, be
          it guilty, not guilty or no verdict.


     Although the presumption of innocence was characterized as being "a
piece of evidence" a long time ago, Belock v. State Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 108
Vt. 252, 262, 185 A. 100, 105 (1936), the concept that a presumption is
evidence was recognized as a "false doctrine" and discarded in Tyrrell v.
Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 109 Vt. 6, 23, 192 A. 184, 192 (1937).  In
1957, however, the Legislature enacted 13 V.S.A. { 6502, which reads:

            The presumption of innocence in criminal causes shall
          attend the accused until the jury renders a verdict of
          guilty, and the court shall charge the jury accordingly.
          This presumption of innocence is a proper subject of
          comment in argument.

This Court held that this statute made the presumption of innocence "a
piece of evidence, to be considered by the jury in the defendant's favor in
arriving at their verdict."  State v. Camley, 140 Vt. 483, 488,