Opinion ID: 159789
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Real, Substantial Doubt

Text: 28 In Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478 (1978), the Supreme Court expressed its concern over a reasonable doubt instruction which defined reasonable doubt as substantial doubt: though perhaps not in itself reversible error, often has been criticized as confusing. Id. at 488. Twelve years later, the Court held that such a definition, combined with grave uncertainty and moral certainty, violated the Due Process Clause. See Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 40-41 (1990) (per curiam). In Cage, the jurors were instructed: 29 [A reasonable doubt] is one that is founded upon a real tangible substantial basis and not upon mere caprice and conjecture. It must be such doubt as would give rise to a grave uncertainty, raised in your mind by reasons of the unsatisfactory character of the evidence or lack thereof. A reasonable doubt is not a mere possible doubt. It is an actual substantial doubt. It is a doubt that a reasonable man can seriously entertain. What is required is not an absolute or mathematical certainty, but a moral certainty. 30 Id. at 40 (quotation omitted). 31 The Cage Court held that the emphasized portions of the instruction rendered it unconstitutional: 32 It is plain to us that the words substantial and grave, as they are commonly understood, suggest a higher degree of doubt than is required for acquittal under the reasonable-doubt standard. When those statements are then considered with the reference to moral certainty, rather than evidentiary certainty, it becomes clear that a reasonable juror could have interpreted the instruction to allow a finding of guilt based on a degree of proof below that required by the Due Process Clause. 2 33 In Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1 (1994), the Supreme Court again considered jury instructions defining reasonable doubt. The Victor Court reviewed different instructions from two consolidated cases and held each was constitutionally adequate. The instruction relevant to our inquiry read: 34 Reasonable doubt is such a doubt as would cause a reasonable and prudent person, in one of the graver and more important transactions of life, to pause and hesitate before taking the represented facts as true and relying and acting thereon. It is such a doubt as will not permit you, after full, fair, and impartial consideration of all the evidence, to have an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, of the guilt of the accused. At the same time absolute or mathematical certainty is not required. You may be convinced of the truth of a fact beyond a reasonable doubt and yet be fully aware that possibly you may be mistaken. You may find an accused guilty upon the strong probabilities of the case, provided such probabilities are strong enough to exclude any doubt of his guilt that is reasonable. A reasonable doubt is an actual and substantial doubt reasonably arising from the evidence, from the facts or circumstances shown by the evidence, or from the lack of evidence on the part of the State, as distinguished from a doubt arising from mere possibility, from bare imagination, or from fanciful conjecture. 35 Id. at 18 (emphasis added). 36 The Victor Court agreed that the equation of a reasonable doubt with a substantial doubt was problematic, but it distinguished the instruction from that given in Cage: 37 On the one hand, substantial means not seeming or imaginary; on the other, it means that specified to a large degree. Webster's Third New International Dictionary, at 2280. The former is unexceptionable, as it informs the jury only that a reasonable doubt is something more than a speculative one; but the latter could imply a doubt greater than required for acquittal under Winship. Any ambiguity, however, is removed by reading the phrase in the context of the sentence in which it appears: A reasonable doubt is an actual and substantial doubt . . . as distinguished from a doubt arising from mere possibility, from bare imagination, or from fanciful conjecture. Victor App. 11 (emphasis added). 38 This explicit distinction between a substantial doubt and a fanciful conjecture was not present in the Cage instruction. 39 Victor, 511 U.S. at 19-20. 40 Like the instruction in Victor, but unlike the Cage and Monk instructions, Mr. Tillman's instruction distinguishes a real, substantial doubt from one that is merely possible or imaginary. See Rec. at 193. In Cage, the Court was concerned that the jury would interpret the term `substantial doubt' in parallel with the preceding reference to `grave uncertainty,' leading to an overstatement of the doubt necessary to acquit. Victor, 511 U.S. at 20. Not only is the reference to grave uncertainty absent from Mr. Tillman's instruction, but the juxtaposition with merely possible or imaginary makes clear that `substantial' is used in the sense of existence rather than magnitude of the doubt, so the same concern is not present. Id.; see also Ramirez v. Hatcher, 136 F.3d 1209, 1212-13 (9th Cir. 1998) (upholding instruction contrasting substantial with mere possibility or speculation); Flamer v. Delaware, 68 F.3d 736, 757 (3d Cir. 1995) (en banc) (approving instruction contrasting substantial doubt with mere possible, vague, speculative, and whimsical doubt); Adams v. Aiken, 41 F.3d 175, 181 (4th Cir. 1994) (approving instruction contrasting substantial with whimsical, imaginary, weak, and slight). Thus, although far from exemplary, the use of the substantial doubt language was not error. 41