Opinion ID: 1166658
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Instruction re: Reasonable Doubt.

Text: Appellant next asserts that the trial court erred in giving a jury instruction which elaborated on the statutory reasonable doubt instruction. [3] The challenged instruction stated: It is not necessary that the Defendant's guilt should be established beyond any doubt or to an absolute certainty, but instead thereof that the Defendant's guilt must be established beyond a reasonable doubt as hereinafter defined. Although NRS 175.211(2) forbids any definition of reasonable doubt other than that contained in the statute given as a jury instruction, this Court in Tucker v. State, 92 Nev. 486, 553 P.2d 951 (1976), while disapproving of the lower courts' giving of the additional instruction, nevertheless permitted an instruction clarifying the statutory reasonable doubt definition. The instruction in Tucker read: The law does not require demonstration or that degree of proof which, excluding all possibility of error, produces absolute certainty, for such degree of proof is rarely possible. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt only is required, which is that degree of proof which produces conviction in an unprejudiced mind. Id. at 490 n. 6, 553 P.2d at 953 n. 6. Although we again refuse to condone this practice, finding NRS 175.211(1) to be adequate, a comparison of the Tucker instruction with the instruction in the instant case readily demonstrates that the latter is much more innocuous. The instruction here goes no further than to define reasonable doubt within the legislative confines and is, in fact, in harmony with NRS 175.211(1). The trial court did not commit error. The judgment of conviction is affirmed. BATJER, C.J., and MOWBRAY and THOMPSON, JJ., concur.