Opinion ID: 508497
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: implied malice instruction

Text: 22 Under Georgia law, malice, express or implied, is absolutely essential to a conviction for murder. Elder v. State, 212 Ga. 705, 95 S.E.2d 373 (1956); see also Lamb v. Jernigan, 683 F.2d 1332, 1337 (11th Cir.1982). Georgia divides the burden of proving malice as follows: The burden of producing some evidence of provocation is on the defendant only after the State shows circumstance from which malice may be implied, and the ultimate burden of proving malice beyond a reasonable doubt is on the State. Davis v. State, 237 Ga. 279, 227 S.E.2d 249, 250 (1976). Although the ultimate burden is on the state, malice is presumed in a Georgia homicide unless shown to the contrary. Wiggins v. State, 221 Ga. 609, 146 S.E.2d 294 (1965). The jury in this case was accordingly instructed that [m]alice shall be implied where no considerable provocation appears and where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart. 23 Fulghum argues that the mandatory nature of the presumption unconstitutionally shifted the state's burden of proving an essential element of his murder conviction. This Circuit has previously considered the identical jury charge and held that the charge alone is constitutionally infirm. Lamb v. Jernigan, 683 F.2d 1332 (11th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1024, 103 S.Ct. 1276, 75 L.Ed.2d 496 (1983). Lamb, however, also concluded that the malice charge did not shift the burden. 24 Lamb interpreted the malice instruction as directing the jury that the finding of malice must often be based entirely on circumstantial evidence--that it is not entitled to refuse to find malice solely because direct evidence of malicious intent is lacking. 683 F.2d at 1340. Therefore Lamb looked to the accompanying instructions on circumstantial evidence to determine if the instructions as a whole lessened the reasonable-doubt burden of the prosecution. The Lamb Court held that strong circumstantial evidence instructions preserved the full burden of the prosecution. Id; accord Humphrey v. Boney, 785 F.2d 1495 (11th Cir.1986); Jarrell v. Balkcom, 735 F.2d 1242 (11th Cir.1984); see also Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 318-19, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1973, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985) ([T]he jury charge taken as a whole ... explained the proper allocation of burdens with sufficient clarity that any ambiguity in the particular language challenged could not have been understood by a reasonable juror as shifting the burden of persuasion.). 25 We compare this case to Lamb as binding precedent. The court in this case gave the following jury instructions on circumstantial evidence: 26 Now there are two kinds of evidence. I charge you that direct evidence is that which immediately points to the question at issue. Indirect or circumstantial evidence is that which only tends to establish the issue by proof of various facts, sustaining by their consistency the hypothesis claimed. To warrant a conviction upon circumstantial evidence, the proved facts shall not only be consistent with the hypothesis of guilt, but shall exclude every other reasonable hypothesis save that of the guilt of the accused. 27 These instructions are practically verbatim those deemed in Lamb to be sufficient to cure any ambiguity as to the state's burden of proving malice beyond a reasonable doubt. Following Lamb, the implied malice instruction did not impermissibly shift the burden of proof in this case.