Court Opinion

ID: 9635092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:36:22.014314+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:18.027303
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
dissenting.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, The Life of Reason or The Phase of Human Progress 284 (2d ed.1924).
[A]ll counsel shall refrain from any expression of the meaning or definition of the phrase “reasonable doubt.”
Commonwealth v. Callahan, 675 S.W.2d 391, 393 (Ky.1984). Unfortunately, those who have joined the majority opinion in this case either have forgotten or choose not to remember what led this Court to that ruling. As noted in Callahan, id. at 392, that case was simply “part of the progeny spawned, by Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct. 1930, 56 L.Ed.2d 468 (1978).”
*553In Merritt v. Commonwealth, 386 S.W.2d 727 (Ky.1965), our predecessor court had addressed the issue as follows:
There have been many definitions of reasonable doubt, and we are not so presumptuous as to fancy we can coin a better one here. But it should be observed that a reasonable doubt cannot mean any doubt. There is some doubt about everything. A reasonable doubt is a substantial doubt, a real doubt, in that the juror must ask himself not whether a better case might have been proved, but whether after hearing the evidence the juror himself actually doubts that the defendant is guilty.
Id. at 729.
Presumptuous or not, our predecessor court subsequently amended RCr 9.56 to adopt the Merritt definition and require that juries in every criminal case be instructed, inter alia, as follows:
If upon the whole case you have a reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt, you will find him not guilty. The term “reasonable doubt” as used in these instructions means a substantial doubt, a real doubt, in that you must ask yourself not whether a better case might have been proved but whether after hearing all the evidence you actually doubt that the defendant is guilty.
In Taylor, the issue was not whether this instruction properly defined “reasonable doubt” but whether it was also necessary to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence. Following existing Kentucky precedent, our Court of Appeals had held that “as long as the trial court instructs the jury on reasonable doubt an instruction on the presumption of innocence is not necessary.” Taylor v. Commonwealth, 551 S.W.2d 813, 814 (Ky.App.1977) (citing Swango v. Commonwealth, 291 Ky. 690, 165 S.W.2d 182 (1942); Mink v. Commonwealth, 228 Ky. 674, 15 S.W.2d 463 (1929)). We denied discretionary review, but the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari. Taylor v. Kentucky, 434 U.S. 964, 98 S.Ct. 502, 54 L.Ed.2d 449 (1977).
In holding that it was prejudicial error to refuse to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence, the U.S. Supreme Court characterized the trial court’s instructions as “skeletal” and “Spartan.” Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 486, 98 S.Ct. 1930, 1935, 56 L.Ed.2d 468 (1978). The Court noted further that the trial court’s “truncated discussion of reasonable doubt ... was hardly a model of clarity” and “often has been criticized as confusing.” Id. at 488, 98 S.Ct. at 1936. The Court proceeded to hold that the failure to separately instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence, especially in light of the “confusing” definition of reasonable doubt coupled with certain inherently misleading assertions made by the prosecutor during opening and closing arguments, denied the accused his right to due process of law. Id. at 486-90, 98 S.Ct. at 1935-38.
Rather than attempt to formulate a new, less “confusing” definition of “reasonable doubt,” our predecessors on this Court “[threw] in the towel,” Whorton v. Commonwealth, 570 S.W.2d 627, 631 (Ky.1978), rev’d, Kentucky v. Whorton, 441 U.S. 786, 99 S.Ct. 2088, 60 L.Ed.2d 640 (1979), and amended RCr 9.56 to read:
(1) In every case the jury shall be instructed substantially as follows:
“The law presumes a defendant to be innocent of a crime, and the indictment shall not be considered as evidence or as having any weight against him or her. You shall find the defendant not guilty unless you are satisfied from the evidence alone and beyond a reasonable doubt that he or she is guilty. If upon the whole case you have a reasonable doubt that he or she is guilty, you shall find him or her not guilty.”
*554(2) The instructions should not attempt to define the term “reasonable doubt.”
(Emphasis added.)
That, of course, did not prevent prosecutors and defense counsel from formulating their own sometimes elaborate explanations of what was or was not a “reasonable doubt” during voir dire, opening statements, and closing arguments.1 In fact, our predecessor court probably invited this practice when it said in Cox v. Cooper, 510 S.W.2d 530 (Ky.1974): “Our approach to instructions is that they should provide only the bare bones, which can be fleshed out by counsel in their closing arguments if they so desire.” Id. at 535. Thus, in Callahan, defense counsel defined “reasonable doubt” as “any doubt,” and the prosecutor told the jury that “[tjhere is a little doubt about whether we are even here today.” Callahan, 675 S.W.2d at 392. Noting the incongruity of prohibiting trial judges from defining “reasonable doubt” while permitting the parties to invent their own self-serving definitions, the Court extended the RCr 9.56(2) prohibition against attempting to define “reasonable doubt” to trial counsel.
Having prohibited the court from definition of the term “reasonable doubt” in the instructions by RCr 9.56(2), we can hardly condone a client-serving definition by defense counsel or prosecutor in either voir dire, opening statement or closing argument. As stated in Taylor, supra [Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. at 488-89, 98 S.Ct. at 1936], "... arguments of counsel cannot substitute for instructions by the court.” We do not intend by this holding that counsel ean-not point out to the jury which evidence, or lack thereof, creates reasonable doubt, but all counsel shall refrain from any expression of the meaning or definition of the phrase “reasonable doubt.” As stated in Wigmore, supra [9 Wigmore, Evidence, § 2497 (Chadboum rev. 1981) ], page 408:
The effort to perpetuate these elaborate unserviceable definitions is a useless one and serves today chiefly to aid the purpose of the tactician. It should be abandoned.
Id. at 393 (emphasis added).
In Sanborn v. Commonwealth, 754 S.W.2d 534 (Ky.1988), we held that “[t]he prosecutor improperly defined reasonable doubt to the jury,” id. at 544, but did not recite the nature of the remark. However, in Marsch v. Commonwealth, 743 S.W.2d 830 (Ky.1987), we held that a “clear-cut violation” of Callahan occurred when the prosecutor told a juror during individual voir dire that “there was a significant distinction between being convinced beyond a reasonable doubt and being convinced beyond all or a shadow of a doubt.” Id. at 832-33.
As in Marsch, the prosecutor in the case sub judice undertook to express the meaning of “reasonable doubt” (not which evidence or lack thereof created reasonable doubt) by informing the jurors during voir dire, over Appellant’s objection, that “beyond a reasonable doubt” does not mean “beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
Let me get a show of hands. How many have heard the term “beyond a shadow of a doubt”?
(Prospective jurors respond by raising their hands.)
*555I think it’s safe to say everybody raised their hands_ Now listen carefully. There ain’t no such thing in the criminal justice system in the United States of America. That’s one of the myths that has arisen. Nobody has to prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt.
[[Image here]]
... [T]his “shadow of a doubt,” I don’t care how many times you’ve heard it. It’s a myth. What the Commonwealth has to prove is a case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The majority opinion’s reliance on Caudill v. Commonwealth, 120 S.W.3d 635, 675-76 (Ky.2003), and Sanders v. Commonwealth, 801 S.W.2d 665, 671 (Ky.1990), is misplaced. Unlike the case sub judice, there was not a contemporaneous objection to the prosecutor’s discussion of the meaning of reasonable doubt in either Caudill or Sanders. In both cases, we applied the standard of review for unpreserved errors in death penalty cases and held that “we are wholly unconvinced, considering the circumstances, that absent this putative error the [appellants] may not have been found guilty of a capital crime, or the death penalty may not have been imposed.” Caudill, 120 S.W.3d at 675-76; Sanders, 801 S.W.2d at 671.
With today’s decision, we have regressed to where we were in 1978. Trial courts cannot instruct juries as to the meaning or definition of “reasonable doubt,” but prosecutors and defense counsel can urge juries to adopt their own client-serving definitions (for surely this Court is not holding that a prosecutor can tell the jury its version of the meaning of reasonable doubt but defense counsel cannot). If jurors are to be instructed on the meaning or definition of reasonable doubt, the instruction should come from the neutrality of the bench, not the advocacy of counsel. However, I believe Callahan struck the right chord, as one can only surmise what definition would pass constitutional muster. Taylor was not the last case reversed by the United States Supreme Court because of an improper definition of “reasonable doubt.” In Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 111 S.Ct. 328, 112 L.Ed.2d 339 (1990), abrogated on other grounds by Estelle v. McGuire, 502 U.S. 62, 73 n. 4, 112 S.Ct. 475, 482 n. 4, 116 L.Ed.2d 385 (1991), the Court held that it was reversible error for a state court to instruct the jury as follows:
“[A reasonable doubt] is one that is founded upon a real tangible substantial basis and not upon mere caprice and conjecture. It must be such doubt as would give rise to a grave uncertainty, raised in your minds by reasons of the unsatisfactory character of the evidence or lack thereof. A reasonable doubt is not a mere possible doubt. It is an actual substantial doubt It is a doubt that a reasonable man can seriously entertain. What is required is not an absolute or mathematical certainty, but a moral certainty.”
Id. at 40, 111 S.Ct. at 329. I perceive no real distinction between an “absolute or mathematical certainty” and “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” If a trial court cannot instruct a jury that “reasonable doubt” does not mean “beyond a shadow of a doubt,” then a prosecutor should not be allowed to do so.
Accordingly, I dissent.
LAMBERT, C.J., joins this dissenting opinion.

. I remember one particularly tedious closing argument during which defense counsel attempted to explain the meaning of "reasonable doubt” by telling the jurors to imagine a giant curtain across the courtroom that blocked their view of the witness stand, then gradually opening the imaginary curtain while informing the jurors that even that much blockage constituted a reasonable doubt.