Court Opinion

ID: 9739874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:22:44.639483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:14.441399
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(dissenting). After adequately defining “reasonable doubt,” the judge charged the jury as follows: “The burden of proof is upon the prosecutor. All presumptions of law, independent of evidence, are in favor of innocence. Every person is presumed to be innocent unless he’s proven guilty. If, after such proof as has been offered, there is reasonable doubt remaining, the accused is entitled to the benefit of that by being acquitted. It is not sufficient for the Commonwealth just to establish a probability.” The judge, unfortunately, then added to that correct instruction, the following: “Although *741an exception would be when one arises from the fact that the crime charged is more likely to be true than contrary, but the evidence must be the truth of the facts to a reasonable and moral certainty that satisfies the reason and judgment of you the jurors, who are bound to act consciously upon it.”
The instructions internally conflicted. Proof of a probability that the defendant committed the crime, the judge said, is not enough for conviction. Proof of a probability, the judge also said, is enough. Nowhere in the instructions is that conflict resolved. Unlike in Commonwealth v. A Juvenile (No. 2), 396 Mass. 215 (1985), the court cannot be confident that the jury understood from the charge as a whole that the incorrect statement was inadvertent. In that case, the judge gave a lengthy and, with one exception, correct instruction on the Commonwealth’s burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 217 n.2. He devoted considerable attention to the meaning of “beyond a reasonable doubt,” thus emphasizing the importance of that concept to the Commonwealth’s burden. In the course of his instruction, the judge stated that the proof required for conviction “is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” In the context of the entire charge, it would have been obvious not only to persons trained in the law but to untrained persons as well that the judge’s use of the word “not” was inadvertent. We held there was no reversible error.
In Commonwealth v. Beverly, 389 Mass. 866, 870-873 (1983), the judge carefully, repetitively, and correctly instructed the jury with respect to the meaning of proof beyond a reasonable doubt and the Commonwealth’s burden to meet that standard. He then told the jury that, “if a reasonable construction of the evidence leads to a conclusion of guilt, you may not ignore that conclusion. While it is your duty to give the defendant the benefit of every reasonable doubt, you are not to search for doubt. You are to search for truth and to say so by your verdict, whether it be guilty or not guilty.” Id. at 871 n.5. We recognized, id. at 872, that “[t]o say that the jury may not ignore a ‘reasonable construction of the evidence’ that leads to ‘a conclusion of guilt’ fails to reflect the concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” However, we concluded that *742that deficiency was overcome by other language in the charge. Id. While the judge’s statement in Beverly was deficient, the statement was not made in conjunction with a discussion of the Commonwealth’s burden of proof, but rather was in the context of an exhortation to the jury to seek the truth and declare it by their verdict. Furthermore, even as to burden of proof, the statement did not expressly contradict the numerous other correct instructions the judge had given. The statement was consistent with the notion that the jury should not ignore a conclusion of guilt established beyond a reasonable doubt by a reasonable construction of the evidence. The statement was not, as it is in the case at bar, “the exact inverse of what it should have been.” Commonwealth v. Wood, 380 Mass. 545, 548 (1980), quoting Dunn v. Perrin, 570 F.2d 21, 24 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 437 U.S. 910 (1978). Our conclusion in Beverly that the incorrect statement, when viewed in context, did not require reversal, should not cause the court in this case to brush aside a clearly wrong and uncorrected statement likely at least to confuse, if not to mislead, the jury as to the standard of proof to be met by the Commonwealth.
The court attempts to justify its affirmance of the conviction by stating that “[hjere . . . there was no suggestion by the judge that the exception he spoke of had application to the facts of the case before him.” Ante at 738. Is the court really confident that the jury, charged with deciding this case, understood that, in his final instructions, the judge was telling them about an exception applicable to some other case but not to this one?
The court’s reliance on the fact that “the jury made a distinction by finding the defendant not guilty of charges supported by less convincing evidence,” ante at 738, is also unjustified. For all that appears, the jury were satisfied that probably the defendant assaulted and beat one alleged victim, but was not satisfied that probably he broke and entered or that probably he assaulted and beat the other alleged victim. The jury’s discrimination between charges says nothing about the standard of proof they applied.
*743The defendant was convicted of assault and battery on Winifred Guilfoyle. She testified that he punched her. He testified that he did not. “[N]o part of the usual instructions to juries in criminal cases is of more significance than the discussion of reasonable doubt.” Commonwealth v. Ferreira, 373 Mass. 116, 128 (1977). The jury’s understanding of reasonable doubt and the Commonwealth’s burden of proving its case by that standard is especially significant where, as here, “central facts ... are at issue, and credibility plays a key role.” Commonwealth v. Wood, supra at 549, quoting Commonwealth v. Garcia, 379 Mass. 422, 441 (1980). Clearly, the erroneous instruction in this case created a substantial risk of a miscarriage of justice, see Commonwealth v. Wood, supra at 549-550; Commonwealth v. Sullivan, 20 Mass. App. Ct. 802, 805 (1985). Therefore, the conviction should be reversed, and the case should be remanded for a new trial.1

 In view of the result I would reach on the basis of the jury instructions, I do not address the defendant’s arguments relative to sentencing beyond expressing my view that they have merit.