Court Opinion

ID: 9671039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:29:57.581444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:07.830953
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(concurring in result).
I concur in the result reached, but with respect to the instruction on reasonable doubt do so only for the reason that the instruction has been previously approved and so the trial court cannot be criticized for using it. Examination of some twenty or thirty decisions approving the instruction shows it is usually done without discussion of reasons or justification other than precedent, bringing to mind the words of Holmes, J., in Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347, 391, 32 S.Ct. 793, 811, 56 L.Ed. 1114, “. . . It is one of the misfortunes of the law that ideas become encysted in phrases and thereafter for a long time cease to provoke further analysis
However, in the future, I would hope something could be done to eliminate from the approved instruction on reasonable *490doubt the qualification that it should be “a substantial doubt touching the defendant’s guilt and not a mere possibility of his innocence.”
The trial court is required to instruct on reasonable doubt and once it tells the jury “The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” that ought to be sufficient. No definition of reasonable doubt should be given. Definitions lead to comments on the evidence and efforts to get an edge one way or the other.
Here, for example, the definition qualifies and changes reasonable doubt to substantial doubt if applied to acquittal, while leaving it at reasonable doubt if applied to conviction. This does not seem to me to be an even-handed application of the rules of the contest between the contending parties. “Reasonable” and “substantial” are not synonymous, as can be seen by referring to any of the standard dictionaries. The point was well put by counsel in argument recently where he pointed out that if one had to undergo a serious operation and were querying the doctor as to the prospects for a successful outcome, how differently the person would feel if the doctor told him there was only a reasonable chance of success as opposed to being told there was a substantial chance of success.
It is noteworthy that the instruction as now phrased is invariably requested by the state and opposed by the defendant. While empirical knowledge is hard to come by in a question of this sort, it would seem the practical effect of this instruction would be to strengthen the state’s chances of doing no worse than a hung jury and to reduce the defendant’s chances of doing better than a hung jury.
I would be in favor of eliminating from future instructions on reasonable doubt this qualification that it must be a substantial doubt to acquit.