Court Opinion

ID: 9617043
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:51:28.467341+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:04.863502
License: Public Domain

Rosellini, J.
(dissenting) — The jury was told to consider all the instructions together. The instructions as a whole made it clear to them that the burden was on the State to prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. If the first sentence of the instruction objected to clouded that burden for a moment, the cloud was removed in the language of the remainder of the instruction, which made it plain that the presumption is rebuttable, and that the jury was to determine whether there was intent by examining all of the evidence.
The jury returned the only verdict supportable on the evidence. The majority's suggestion that in order to prove its case in chief the State must produce some evidence of intent to kill, in addition to that afforded by circumstances *621of the crime itself, is unfounded in principle or precedent. The jury is entitled to draw inferences from those circumstances. An inescapable inference in the absence of some exculpatory evidence is that a person intends the probable consequences of his acts.
I would hold that, if there was some error in not instructing on the defendant's burden of rebuttal, the error was harmless. It is wasteful to order a new trial since, assuming another reasonable jury is impaneled, such a trial is bound to produce the same result.
Stafford and Wright, JJ., concur with Rosellini, J.