Opinion ID: 1149193
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Assignment of Error Numbers 12, 14, 27, 36, 39, 45, 58, 69, 72, 74, 94 and 95

Text: In his third argument, the defendant claims the court read an erroneous instruction on reasonable doubt during voir dire [8] and again before deliberation. [9] The defendant alleges there is a reasonable likelihood the jury interpreted the trial court's definition of reasonable doubt in an unconstitutional manner, and the charge given violated the defendant's right to due process and to a jury trial. The defendant complains most vociferously about the portion of the charge in which the court contrasts a reasonable doubt with a mere slight misgiving. In the defendant's view, Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1, 114 S.Ct. 1239, 127 L.Ed.2d 583 (1994), tolerates the use of the phrase substantial doubt only in the context of an instruction which otherwise demonstrates by the use of other terms such as fanciful conjecture that the word substantial refers to the existence rather than the magnitude of doubt. [10] The defendant thus argues that the court's choice to contrast a substantial doubt with a misgiving as opposed to a doubt arising from mere possibility, from bare imagination, or from fanciful conjecture allowed the jurors to vote to convict him despite possessing a higher degree of doubt than is Constitutionally required for acquittal. The defendant's argument is not convincing. Importantly, although the trial judge did not follow the reasonable doubt charge proposed in the Louisiana Judges' Criminal Bench Book, [11] he nonetheless modified the noun misgiving with the adjectives mere and slight. In these circumstances, a mere slight misgiving or possible doubt does not appear significantly distinguishable from a doubt arising from a mere possibility, bare imagination or fanciful conjecture. Moreover, the court's charge did not equate substantial doubt with grave uncertainty as did the unconstitutional instruction read in Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 111 S.Ct. 328, 112 L.Ed.2d 339 (1990). [12] See Victor, 511 U.S. at 5, 114 S.Ct. at 1243. The defendant also complains about the portion of the definition which equated a reasonable doubt with a doubt for which the jurors could give a good reason. However, in State v. Smith, 91-0749 (La.5/23/94), 637 So.2d 398, cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1045, 115 S.Ct. 641, 130 L.Ed.2d 546 (1994), this court found that an instruction equating a reasonable doubt with a serious doubt for which you could give a good reason was not constitutionally infirm. Id. at p. 2, 637 So.2d at 399. Consequently, this claim does not warrant relief.