Court Opinion

ID: 9682901
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:19:19.130929+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:43.047860
License: Public Domain

WILHOIT, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from so much of the opinion of the majority as holds that an instruction on the presumption of innocence when requested need not be given by the court because the instruction on reasonable doubt suffices. It strikes me as bordering on the fatuous to say that a jury must be instructed on one of the most basic principles of our criminal law but not the other. The reason given for this anomaly in Kentucky jurisprudence has heretofore been that an instruction on the presumption of innocence is “too favorable to the defendant”, Swango v. Commonwealth, 291 Ky. 690, 165 S.W.2d 182 (1942). Most of those rights embodied in the modern concept of due process are “favorable to the defendant”, but that is their very reason for existence. Not every person charged in a criminal complaint or indicted by a grand jury is guilty of a crime. In recognition of this, our system has built in certain safeguards to protect the innocent. One of these safeguards is the so-called presumption of innocence of a criminal defendant. There is certainly no such presumption in the minds of jurors about to try a case. In fact, by the time the indictment is read to the jurors, the opposite presumption is likely to be present in their minds. The law builds in the presumption of innocence, but it is of no use to the defendant if the jury is never told about it.
*815While an instruction on reasonable doubt does much the same thing that one on the presumption of innocence would do, I believe there is a subtle distinction between the two and one does not completely perform the job of the other. As pointed out by Wigmore, the concept of presumption of innocence “cautions the jury to put away from their minds all of the suspicion that arises from the arrest, the indictment, and the arraignment and to reach their conclusion solely from the legal evidence adduced.” He further points out that this caution is “indeed particularly needed in criminal cases”. IX J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2511 (3d ed. 1940).
I believe the Supreme Court of Kentucky would now reject the old line of cases relied upon by the majority.