Opinion ID: 1205096
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Proof Beyond Reasonable Doubt

Text: (27) Defendant contends that certain instructions given the jury in this case undermined the constitutional requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court instructed the jury that defendant was presumed innocent until the contrary was proved and that the presumption placed on the state the burden of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. (CALJIC No. 2.90; งง 1096, 1096a.) In four separate instructions โ pertaining to the charged crimes, the required mental state, and the special circumstance allegations โ the trial court told the jury that if one interpretation of the evidence appears to you to be reasonable and the other interpretation to be unreasonable, it would be your duty to accept the reasonable interpretation and to reject the unreasonable. Defendant contends that by telling the jurors that their duty is to accept a guilty interpretation of the evidence as long as it appears to be reasonable, the instructions (1) allow a finding of guilt based on a degree of proof less than that of the reasonable doubt standard (see In re Winship (1970) 397 U.S. 358, 364 [25 L.Ed.2d 368, 375, 90 S.Ct. 1068]) and (2) operate as an unconstitutional mandatory, conclusive presumption of guilt (see Carella v. California (1989) 491 U.S. 263, 265-266 [105 L.Ed.2d 218, 221-222, 109 S.Ct. 2419]; Sandstrom v. Montana (1979) 442 U.S. 510, 515 [61 L.Ed.2d 39, 45, 99 S.Ct. 2450]). We rejected similar contentions in People v. Jennings (1991) 53 Cal.3d 334, 386 [279 Cal. Rptr. 980, 807 P.2d 1009] ( Jennings ), and while defendant criticizes our reasoning, we are not persuaded to reconsider our holding. Finally, we note that despite their use of the term moral certainty, the instructions given in this case do not suffer from the flaws condemned in Cage v. Louisiana (1990) 498 U.S. 39 [112 L.Ed.2d 339, 111 S.Ct. 328]. As we held in Jennings, supra, 53 Cal.3d 334, CALJIC No. 2.90 does not transform true reasonable doubt, as it traditionally has been defined, into some other degree of doubt.