Opinion ID: 1476714
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Reasonable versus Possible Doubt

Text: While the appellants professedly recognize the rule that the Government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, their briefs are replete with expressions which seem to indicate that in reality the standard actually insisted upon is that the appellee's evidence should remove all possible doubt. For example, we are twice told that The Government failed to eliminate the possibility of the drugs having lost their strength    or having undissolved material formed or introduced in it    between the dates of shipment and the dates of the Government tests. Again, after enumerating many dire vicissitudes through which the drugs in question might have passed  such as improper handling, the use of hypodermic needles containing certain chemicals, and the like  the appellants suggest: Anyone of the above things may have occurred even while in the inspector's hands, or during shipment by the inspector to Washington, D. C. [Emphasis supplied] Elsewhere we find a variation of the same theme: Furthermore, there was no evidence precluding the possibility that the drugs became adulterated and misbranded at some time after they had been shipped by appellants from Pasadena, California. [Emphasis supplied] Finally, in the reply brief we find the statement that still the Government cannot prevail because the Government introduced no evidence to show that any of the above things did not happen. While in other portions of their briefs the appellants do complain that the Government failed to adduce certain affirmative evidence, their insistence also upon the lack of negative evidence indicates that they are holding the appellee to too strict a standard of proof; namely, the proof of several negatives. In Henderson v. United States, 9 Cir., 143 F.2d 681, 682, we said: The proof in a criminal case need not exclude all doubt. If that were the rule, crime would be punished only by the criminal's own conscience, and organized society would be without defense against the conscienceless criminal and against the weak, the cowardly and the lazy who would seek to live on their wits. The proof need go no further than reach that degree of probability where the general experience of men suggests that it has passed the mark of reasonable doubt. See also Rose v. United States, 9 Cir., 149 F.2d 755, 759.