Opinion ID: 1435796
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Jury Instruction on the Commonwealth's Burden of Proof

Text: Next, Appellant claims that the instruction by the trial court on the Commonwealth's burden of proof was so misleading that constitutional safeguards necessitate a new trial. The part of the charge that Appellant alleges violated of his due process rights follows: So to summarize all of that again, you may not find the defendant guilty based on a mere suspicion of guilt. The Commonwealth has the burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If it meets that burden, the defendant is no longer presumed innocent and you should find him guilty. On the other hand, if the Commonwealth does not meet its burden, then you must find him not guilty. N.T., Sept. 30, 1991, at 1120-21. Although he concedes that the trial court gave the jury a fair definition of the Commonwealth's burden of proof, Appellant argues that this summary distorted an otherwise clear and accurate charge. Appellant's Brief, at 30. Specifically, Appellant attacks the phrase mere suspicion of guilt and claims that it creates an impression of a burden of proof below what is required by law. After examining the entire charge concerning the Commonwealth's burden of proof, we conclude that trial court committed no error. The trial court repeatedly instructed the jury that the law presumes Appellant is innocent, places no duty on him to prove his own defense, and places all responsibility on the Commonwealth to prove Appellant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. N.T., Sept. 30, 1991, at 1118-21. The instruction clarified that the presumption of innocence remains in tact until defeated by evidence. N.T., Sept. 30, 1991, at 1118. The charge conveyed that a reasonable doubt must arise out of the presence or lack of evidence concerning an element of the crime. N.T., Sept. 30, 1991, 1120. The trial court informed the jury that a doubt may not be an imagined one, nor may it be manufactured to avoid carrying out an unpleasant duty. N.T., Sept. 30, 1991, 1120. The jury also heard that, while the Commonwealth need not prove its case to a mathematical certainty, it will not have met its burden, if there exists a doubt in the mind of any juror that would restrain a reasonably careful and sensible person from acting upon a matter of importance in his or her own affairs. N.T., Sept. 30, 1991, 1120. Without impinging on the discretion of the trial courts to phrase their own instructions, we have acknowledged charges in other cases that would clearly enable a jury to determine whether the Commonwealth has met its burden of proof. It is true that this Court has never required a single standard charge on reasonable doubt. However, we also have never stated that a jury may be given a reasonable doubt charge that fails to define reasonable doubt. Moreover, we have repeatedly placed our imprimatur on the charge expressed in Commonwealth v. Donough, 377 Pa. 46, 51-52, 103 A.2d 694, 697 (1954). A standard and approved form of charge on this point would be: `The defendant comes before you presumed to be innocent and the burden is upon the Commonwealth to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A reasonable doubt cannot be a doubt fancied or conjured up in the minds of the jury to escape an unpleasant verdict; it must be an honest doubt arising out of the evidence itself, the kind of doubt that would restrain a reasonable man (or woman) from acting in a matter of importance to himself (or herself).' We have many times approved of the charge recommended in Commonwealth v. Kluska, 333 Pa. 65, 74, 3 A.2d 398, 403 (1939). `As a standard and approved form of charge, however, we are of opinion that the jury should be told either ... that they should not condemn unless so convinced by the evidence that they would venture to act upon that conviction in matters of the highest importance to their own interests, or ... that a reasonable doubt was one that would cause them to hesitate to act in any of the important affairs of their own lives.' Commonwealth v. Young, 456 Pa. 102, 317 A.2d 258, 261-62 (1974) (citations and notes omitted). The choice of words selected by the trial court differs in no substantial way from similar instructions on reasonable doubt that this Court has previously approved. See Porter, 728 A.2d at 899-900; Commonwealth v. Jones, 529 Pa. 149, 602 A.2d 820, 822-23 (1992). A near verbatim rendition of the trial court's full charge is provided in Instruction 7.01 of the Pennsylvania Suggested Standard Criminal Jury Instructions. [18] The concluding admonition to the jurors that they could not find Appellant guilty based on a mere suspicion of guilt reinforced the court's earlier dictate that they could make no finding of guilt unless it was based on a careful and impartial consideration of the evidence. N.T., Sept. 30, 1991, at 1118. Accordingly, there is no merit to Appellant's assertion that his trial counsel was ineffective for not objecting to the proper instruction on reasonable doubt.