Court Opinion

ID: 9651234
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:10:55.464892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:31.153107
License: Public Domain

McAULIFFE, Judge,
concurring.
I join in the Court’s opinion. I write separately to express my strongly held view that trial judges should in*389struct on the issue of reasonable doubt in the form suggested by Maryland Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction 2:02, and resist the temptation to stray from, or embellish upon, that instruction.
I am not particularly fond of including in a reasonable doubt instruction reference to important decisions the jurors may be called upon to make in their business or personal affairs, because of the significant potential for misunderstanding inherent in this reference if the concept is not stated with precision. This Court and the Court of Special Appeals are seeing increasing numbers of challenges to reasonable doubt instructions, largely because attempts to embellish upon the suggested instruction often suggest to the jurors that if they make a decision concerning important affairs in their life or business, the evidence upon which they act necessarily constitutes proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is wrong. Important decisions in one’s life are often, and of necessity, made on a mere preponderance of evidence.
In Monk v. Zelez, 901 F.2d 885, 889-92 (10th Cir.1990), the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit found constitutionally defective1 that portion of a reasonable doubt instruction which stated:
If you have an abiding conviction of [the defendant’s] guilt such as you would be willing to act upon in the more weighty and important matters relating to your own affairs, then you have no reasonable doubt.
The court said:
The “willingness to act” language identified by Monk has also been repeatedly criticized by this court and others. See, e.g., United States v. Leaphart, 513 F.2d 747, 750 (10th Cir.1975); United States v. Baptiste, 608 F.2d 666, 668 (5th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 1000, 101 S.Ct. 1707, 68 L.Ed.2d 202 (1981); United States v. *390Robinson, 546 F.2d 309, 313 (9th Cir.1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 918, 97 S.Ct. 1333, 51 L.Ed.2d 597 (1977). As the D.C. Circuit has noted, “there is a substantial difference between a juror’s verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and a person making a judgment in a matter of personal importance to him.” Scurry v. United States, 347 F.2d 468, 470 (D.C.Cir.1965), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 883, 88 S.Ct. 139, 19 L.Ed.2d 179 (1967).
Id. at 890.
The Committee on Model Jury Instructions for the Ninth Circuit deleted from its instruction on reasonable doubt reference to “important decisions” in the lives of jurors. The Committee explained:
The former model instruction instructed the jury to find the defendant guilty only if “you find the evidence so convincing that an ordinary person would be willing to make the most important decisions in his or her own life on the basis of such evidence.” The Committee has rejected this analogy because the most important decisions in life—choosing a spouse, buying a house, borrowing money, and the like—may involve a heavy element of uncertainty and risk-taking and are wholly unlike the decisions jurors ought to make in criminal cases.
9th Cir.Crim.Jury Inst. 3.03 comment (1992).
More than a century ago, the United States Supreme Court said that “[a]ttempts to explain the term ‘reasonable doubt’ do not usually result in making it any clearer to the minds of the jury.” Miles v. United States, 103 U.S. 304, 312, 26 L.Ed. 481 (1880). More recently, see Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 140, 75 S.Ct. 127, 137, 99 L.Ed. 150 (1954).
In Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 111 S.Ct. 328, 112 L.Ed.2d 339 (1990), the Supreme Court reversed a conviction because the trial judge equated reasonable doubt to an “actual substantial doubt” or a “grave uncertainty.” The Court said:
*391It 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.
498 U.S. at 41, 111 S.Ct. at 329-30. In a footnote to the above passage, the Court noted that:
Similar attempts to define reasonable doubt have been widely criticized by the Federal Courts of Appeals. See, e.g., Monk v. Zelez, 901 F.2d 885, 889-890 (CA10 1990); United States v. Moss, 756 F.2d 329, 333 (CA4 1985); United States v. Indorato, 628 F.2d 711, 720-721 (CA1 1980); United States v. Byrd, 352 F.2d 570, 575 (CA2 1965); see also Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 488, 98 S.Ct. 1930, 1936, 56 L.Ed.2d 468 (1978).
498 U.S. at 41, 111 S.Ct. at 330. Recently, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in another Louisiana case to determine whether a constitutionally faulty definition of reasonable doubt can ever be harmless. State v. Sullivan, 596 So.2d 177 (La.), cert. granted, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 373, — L.Ed.2d - (1992).
Maryland Criminal Pattern Jury Instruction 2:02 makes it clear that only such proof “as would convince you of the truth of a fact to the extent that you would be willing to act upon such belief without reservation in an important matter in your own business or personal affairs” is analogous to proof beyond a reasonable doubt (emphasis added). I would adopt here the approach taken by the Court in Kelly v. State, 270 Md. 139, 144, 310 A.2d 538 (1973), dealing with the giving of a modified Allen [v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 17 S.Ct. 154, 41 L.Ed. 528 (1896) ] charge, and instruct trial judges that they should “closely adhere” to the approved instruction and that any departure from that language will be “subjected to careful scrutiny.”
*392Judge ELDRIDGE has authorized me to state that he joins in the views stated herein.

. The court also found defective a separate portion of the instruction that equated reasonable doubt with a "substantial doubt.” 901 F.2d at 889-90.