Court Opinion

ID: 9535651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:51:38.912041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:17.986462
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I believe a reasonable juror could have understood the instructions at issue to create a mandatory presumption that shifted to the defendant the burden of persuasion on the element of intent, once the State had proved the predicate facts.
Under Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), both mandatory conclusive presumptions, which remove the presumed element from the ease once the State has proved the predicate facts, and mandatory rebuttable presumptions, which require the jury to find the presumed element unless the defendant rebuts the presumption, are unconstitutional. See Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 517-18, 99 S.Ct. 2450, 2455-56, 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979); Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307, 314 n. 2, 105 S.Ct. 1965, 1971 n. 2, 85 L.Ed.2d 344 (1985). This case involves the latter type, that is, the mandatory rebuttable presumption.
A mandatory rebuttable presumption relieves the State of its affirmative burden of persuasion on the presumed element by instructing the jury that it must find the presumed element unless the defendant persuades the jury not to make such a finding. Francis v. Franklin, supra, 471 U.S. at 317, 105 S.Ct. at 1972. Such an instruction violates the due process clause. Id.
The dispositive question in this case is whether a reasonable juror could have understood the instructions at issue, taken as a whole, to create a mandatory rebuttable presumption that shifted to the defendant the burden of persuasion on the element of intent once the State had proved the predicate facts. Francis v. Franklin, supra, 471 U.S. at 316, 105 S.Ct. at 1972.
Francis v. Franklin involved jury instructions in a murder prosecution in which the defendant’s sole defense was lack of the requisite intent to kill. The trial judge instructed the jury: “The acts of a person of sound mind and discretion are presumed to be the product of the person’s will, but the presumption may be rebutted. A person of sound mind and discretion is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts, but the presumption may be rebutted.” Id. at 309, 105 S.Ct. at 1968. The United States Supreme Court held that the jury instructions violated due process because a reasonable juror could have understood the charge to create a mandatory presumption that shifted to the defendant the burden of persuasion on the presumed element of intent. Id. at 325, 105 S.Ct. at 1977. In effect, the instruction commanded the jury to find the presumed *225element of intent unless the defendant’s evidence persuaded it not to. Id. at 317, 105 S.Ct. at 1972. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State from using eviden-tiary presumptions which have the effect of relieving the State of its burden of persuasion on every essential element of a crime. Id. at 313, 105 S.Ct. at 1970.
Here, as in Francis, the instruction is “cast in the language of command.” Id. at 315, 105 S.Ct. at 1971. A person concealing merchandise “shall be presumed” to have taken it. Furthermore, “[a] presumption is an inference ... which the law expressly directs to be drawn” and which “substitutes for evidence and governs you in finding the facts.” (My emphasis.) While the instruction informs the jury that the presumption may be “disproved” by the evidence, it does not tell the jury that the defendant does not have the burden of disproof or of nonpersuasion. To the contrary, the instructions strongly suggest that “because the law regards the facts giving rise to the presumption as ‘strong evidence of the fact presumed,’ ” the presumption is mandatory once the predicate facts are established unless the defendant persuades the jury such a finding is unwarranted. The jurors were not told they had a choice or that they were free to infer the presumptive fact or not. See Francis v. Franklin, supra, 471 U.S. at 316, 105 S.Ct. at 1972.
Nor do the general instructions on the State’s burden of persuasion and the defendant’s presumption of innocence overcome or dissipate the constitutional error in the instruction above cited. See id. at 319-20, 105 S.Ct. at 1973-74. The general instructions here did not explain the allocation of burdens so clearly that a reasonable juror would have understood that the burden of persuasion remained with the State and did not shift to the defendant. See id. at 319, 105 S.Ct. at 1973.
Because I am unsure whether the jury relied upon the evidence or upon the presumption to support the conviction, I conclude the error in the instructions is not harmless. See Carella v. California, 109 S.Ct. 2419, 2423 (Scalia, J., concurring). In my view, it is not beyond reasonable doubt that concealment of merchandise conclusively establishes intent to conceal and intent to deprive permanently so that no rational jury could find that the defendant concealed the merchandise but did not intend to shoplift. See Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570, 580-81, 106 S.Ct. 3101, 3107-08, 92 L.Ed.2d 460 (1986).
I would reverse and remand for a new trial.