Court Opinion

ID: 9489251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:10:11.03681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:25.200581
License: Public Domain

WEINSTEIN, District Judge,
concurring:
While concurring with the judgement and rationale of the majority opinion, I add these comments to explain the alternate route by which I arrive at the same result.
Following the post-argument conference with the other members of the panel where affirmance was agreed upon, a Questionnaire, infra, was distributed by the concurring judge on his own motion to twelve jurors and four alternates. They had been selected after a full voir dire; represented an excellent cross-section of citizens in the Eastern District of New York; were observed by the court to be highly responsible in exercising their duties as jurors; and had been discharged after sitting in a simple credit card fraud case in which the defendant had been convicted. The parties in the case and the jurors agreed to the study.
The independent answers of each juror, with respect to different forms of reasonable doubt charges are summarized in the Table of Results, infra. The inquiry suggests that jurors are not as sensitive to the nuances of various charges on reasonable doubt as judges and lawyers seem to be.
Much has been written on how the jury interprets, understands and applies judicial instructions on the law. Professors Kalven and Zeisel have suggested that the jury sometimes applies a different standard of reasonable doubt than the judge has in mind, possibly because jurors are willing to tolerate less doubt of guilt than a judge. See Harry Kalven, Jr. and Hans Zeisel, The American Jury, 182-190 (1966). Another authority notes that “[for jurors] there is the realm of values alone, where the jurors’ sense of justice — their sentiments concerning the law— may lead them to hold standards that are different from those of black-letter law.” Norman J. Finkle, Commonsense Justice: Juror’s Notions of the Law 53 (1995) (emphasis in original). See also, e.g., Alan M. Dershowitz, Reasonable Doubts 69-72, 93-94 (1996). As Judge Woodlock reminded us:
the concept of reasonable doubt has an a priori existence in the minds of all jurors. This original juror understanding of reasonable doubt is apparently considered under the case law constitutionally sufficient to resist most infectious errors communicated by misformulated charges.
Smith v. Butler, 696 F.Supp. 748, 765-766 (D.Mass.1988).
Studies on the effect of reasonable doubt instructions have failed to yield clear results. See, e.g., Amiram Elwork, Bruce D. Sales and James J. Alfini, Making Jury Instructions Understandable (1982); Jacquelyn L. Bain, A Proposed Definition of Reasonable Doubt and the Demise of Circumstantial Evidence Following Hankins v. State, 15 St. Mary’s L.J. 353 (1984); Norbert L. Kerr, Robert S. Atkin, Gerald Stasser, David Meek, Robert W. Holt and James H. Davis, Guilt Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Effects of Concept Definition and Assigned Decision Rule on the Judgements of Mock Jurors, 34 J.Pers. & Soc.Psych. 282 (1976); Jon O. Newman, Beyond “Reasonable Doubt”, 68 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 979 (1994); Laurence J. Severance and Elizabeth F. Loftus, Improving the Ability of Jurors to Comprehend and Apply Criminal Jury Instructions, 17 Law & Soc. Rev. 153 (1982); Walter W. Steele, Jr. and Elizabeth G. Thornburg, Jury Instructions: A Persistent Failure to Communicate, 67 N.C.L.Rev. 77 (1988); David U. Strawn and Raymond W. Buchanan, Jury Confusion: A Threat to Justice, 59 Judicature 478 (1976); Henry A. Diamond, Note, Reasonable Doubt: *1282To Define or Not to Define, 90 Colum.L.Rev. 1716 (1990); Note, Reasonable Doubt: An Argument Against Definition, 108 Harv. L.Rev.1955 (1995).
The form of definition is not without some effect. Kerr and his colleagues compared three different instructions given to mock juries. One instruction did not define reasonable doubt, one gave a lax definition, while the third provided a stringent definition. The only firm conclusion was that the lax definition yielded the highest mock conviction rate. Norbert L. Kerr, Robert S. Atkin et al., Guilt Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Effects of Concept Definition and Assigned Decision Rule on the Judgements of Mock Jurors, 34 J.Pers. & Soc.Psych. 282, 286 (1976).
Severance and Loftus attempted with limited success to improve comprehension of legal concepts such as reasonable doubt and intent by changing pattern jury instructions according to psycholinguistic principles. The authors concluded:
While our findings demonstrate the value of using psycholinguistic principles to rewrite pattern jury instructions, the measures reveal that considerable numbers of errors in comprehension and application remain even with the revised instructions.
Laurence J. Severance and Elizabeth F. Loftus, Improving the Ability of Jurors to Comprehend and Apply Criminal Jury Instructions, 17 Law & Soc.Rev. 153, 194 (1982).
Most of these studies have limited utility. As one summary indicated:
Many of the studies do not deal specifically with reasonable doubt instructions. Other studies fail to compare the comprehension or application errors of subjects who receive a reasonable doubt instruction that includes a definition with those of subjects who receive an instruction that does not include a definition. Some research even indicates that definitions may impair a jury’s understanding of the reasonable doubt concept.
Note, Reasonable Doubt: An Argument Against Definition, 108 Harv.L.Rev.1955, 1964-65 (1995).
Jury comprehension of instructions is estimated by researchers as low (a view not shared by the concurring judge). See Walter W. Steele, Jr. and Elizabeth G. Thornburg, Jury Instructions: A Persistent Failure to Communicate, 67 N.C.L.Rev. 77, 78 (1988). Reasonable doubt seems particularly difficult to define. Most attempts fall short of improving juror understanding. As noted by Strawn and Buchanan,
in some eases (for example, instructions about “demeanor” and “reasonable doubt”) there was a loss of understanding after hearing the instructions, indicating that some instructions were producing confusion, not comprehension.
David U. Strawn and Raymond W. Buchanan, Jury Confusion: A Threat to Justice, 59 Judicature 478, 482 (1976) (emphasis in original). It is “unsettling that we are using a formulation that we believe will become less clear the more we explain it.” Jon 0. Newman, Beyond “Reasonable Doubt”, 68 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 979, 984 (1994).
Experience suggests that the unvarnished constitutionally sufficient minimum jury charge may be best. See In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1072, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970); see also letter I in Table of Results, infra. Under this standard the jury is told only that the government must prove each element of its case beyond a reasonable doubt. This form may well provide close to maximum protection for the defendant. Any modifying language may have a dilutive effect.
This bare bones charge has already been approved by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits. All have held that jury instructions defining reasonable doubt are not required and should be avoided. See, e.g., United States v. Oriakhi, 57 F.3d 1290, 1300 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S.-, 116 S.Ct. 400, 133 L.Ed.2d 319 (1995) (court should not attempt to define reasonable doubt absent a specific request for a definition from the jury); Thompson v. Lynaugh, 821 F.2d 1054, 1060-61 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1035, 108 S.Ct. 5, 97 L.Ed.2d 794 (1987) (failure to define reasonable doubt does not deprive a defendant of due process); Henry *1283A Diamond, Note, Reasonable Doubt: To Define or Not to Define, 90 Colum.L.Rev. 1716, 1719 (1990). The Federal Criminal Jury Instructions of the Seventh Circuit, Commentary at Instruction No. 2.07 (1980), reads:
Although the Seventh Circuit has refused to adopt a per se rule against defining reasonable doubt, it did, in another context, describe the “use of an instruction defining [it as] equivalent to playing with fire.”
1 Federal Criminal Jury Instructions of the Seventh Circuit § 2.07 (1980) (citation omitted). The Seventh Circuit Committee on Federal Jury Instructions recommends that no instruction be given defining reasonable doubt. The Committee’s Comments declare:
The phrase “reasonable doubt” is self-explanatory and is its own best definition. Further elaboration “tends to misleading refinements” which weaken and make imprecise the existing phrase.
Id. (citation omitted). See, e.g., United States v. Blackburn, 992 F.2d 666, 668 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 949, 114 S.Ct. 393, 126 L.Ed.2d 341 (1993) (reasonable doubt should not be defined even upon request by the jury). The Fourth, Fifth and Seventh Circuit approach should be adopted, it is respectfully suggested, for federal courts in the Second Circuit.
The approved Second Circuit charge is, “a doubt that would make a reasonable person hesitate to act in the most important of his or her own affairs.” See letter B in Questionnaire and Table of Results, infra. Although serviceable, it falls short of usefully explaining the jurors’ task. It could be misunderstood since many of us recognize that in the most important affairs of our lives — such as choice of mate, careers and conception — we tend to be largely emotional. Were we to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that our important decisions are correct, few of us would marry, choose law as a career or have children. Most of us are probably comfortable with more risk-taking when making important personal decisions than we would be in declaring as criminals people who may be innocent. See, e.g., Lisa Stone, Portlander’s Book Affirms Power of Sabbaticals, Ourtown [Portland, Oregon], Feb. 19, 1996, at 2 (reviewing Hope Dlugozima, “Six Months Off” (1996)) (“Always having planned out every move of her life with a great deal of thought, this time she acted spontaneously, immediately deciding,” to take a job in a foreign country, thus radically changing her life).
Although the relatively unsophisticated survey summarized below reveals that most differences in the wording of charges do not suggest to jurors substantially different levels of proof necessary to convict, it should be recognized that the sample size is too small to permit any conclusive finding. The results do suggest, however, that with the exception of one charge that improperly uses the moral certainty language (see letter M in Table of Results, infra.), the range of probability the average juror, in this survey, would need to convict is relatively close under any proposed definition. The average ranges from 79.4% to 93.9%. Cf. United States v. Fatico, 458 F.Supp. 388, 410 (E.D.N.Y.1978) (judges’ estimates of probability required under the reasonable doubt standard range from 76% to 95%).
There is no sound reason to conclude that the charge given in the instant case appreciably decreased the burden of proof on the state. Thus it did not violate the petitioner’s due process rights.
A procedural objection might be raised to the use of the survey in this concurrence. Generally, an appellate court must limit itself to the record, precedents, published materials, and matters of judicial notice. See, e.g., Fed.R.Evid. 201 (“[a] court may take judicial notice, whether requested or not ... [of] a fact ... not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is either (1) generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.”); see also, 1 Margaret A. Berger et al., Evidence, ft 201[04][05][06] (1995); Essay, Limits on Judges Learning, Speaking and Acting— Part I — Tentative First Thoughts: How May Judges Learn?, 36 UAriz.L.Rev. 539, 557-60 (1994).
*1284Articles and studies once published are in the market place of ideas. They can be criticized by others as well as cited and used in briefs and arguments. Private, unpublished research should not usually be cited in opinions except where the parties have been afforded a chance to object and point out errors. See, e.g., John H. Mansfield, Norman Abrams and Margaret A. Berger et al., Cases and Materials on Evidence 1303-1304 n. 5 (8th ed. 1988) (criticizing Judge Jerome Frank for relying on a private letter from a sociologist -written to him at his request while the appeal in the case was still under consideration). Where further research or a study seems useful to an appellate court, the matter should normally be remanded to the trial court where an adversary hearing and appropriate fact finding techniques can be used. See, e.g., United States v. Shonubi 895 F.Supp. 460 (E.D.N.Y.1995) (techniques used by the trial court after remand included a panel of experts appointed pursuant to rule 706 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, opposing expert studies funded by government and defendant, evidentiary hearings, argument and reargument, and publication of a draft opinion by the trial court). In the instant case, the study was not seriously objectionable since the concurring judge had at hand the laboratory of his own courtroom and the survey did not affect the decision of the panel. The questionnaire distributed to the jury is set out below:
JURY QUESTIONNAIRE
This survey is designed to assist the court in more effectively instructing juries in future eases. You do not have to answer unless you wish to. Your name will not be used if the results are made public.
Assign a number next to each of the proposed instructions from 1 to 10 indicating how heavy the burden of proof is on the government if reasonable doubt were defined using this language. You can use the same number over and over again if you wish. You do not have to use every number. An example of a definition that might be classified as a 10 (100% certainty) is, “Proof beyond a reasonable doubt requires certainty that the defendant did what he is accused of.” One that might be classified as a 1 (51% certainty) is, “A reasonable doubt exists unless the government proves it more likely than not that the defendant did what he is accused of.”
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