Opinion ID: 2106628
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Use of the Word Alibi in the Alibi Instruction

Text: [22, 23] The defendant claims that the standard instruction on the alibi defense given by the trial court was improper because it includes two references to the word alibi, a word which connotes guilt. The common meaning of alibi is a plausible excuse esp. for failure or negligence. Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1966) at 53. However, the standard jury instruction, Wis. J I Criminal, No. 775, makes clear that the word alibi is used in its technical legal sense. Even if the word alibi carried some adverse connotations, the alibi instruction clearly admonishes the jury that the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was present at the commission of the crime and that, if the jury has a reasonable doubt that he was not, they must find the defendant not guilty. The jury must be presumed to have followed these explicit instructions. Roehl v. State, supra . We find this challenge to the alibi instruction to be without merit.