What Does a Reasonable Doubt Mean?

The Washington Post is reporting tonight that the jury in Paul Manafort’s trial has asked the judge to define the term “reasonable doubt.” 

As the jurors’ question suggests, the reasonable doubt standard is not self-explanatory. Even judges struggle to explain it. For a concept that is so fundamental to our legal system, it is striking that there is no single definition of precisely what “reasonable doubt” means. The reason is because the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to define it. In the 1994 case of Victor v. Nebraska,  the Court explained that:

“The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of a charged offense. Although this standard is an ancient and honored aspect of our criminal justice system, it defies easy explication. . . . The beyond a reasonable doubt standard is a requirement of due process, but the Constitution neither prohibits trial courts from defining reasonable doubt nor requires them to do so as a matter of course. Indeed, so long as the court instructs the jury on the necessity that the defendant’s guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, the Constitution does not require that any particular form of words be used in advising the jury of the government’s burden of proof.”

In the absence of clear guidance from the Supreme Court, legislators and judges have taken it upon themselves to define the meaning of reasonable doubt. Their efforts have included some serious missteps.

In the 1940s case of People v. Feldman, for example, a New York judge instructed the jury in a murder trial that “reasonable doubt” does not mean “the reluctance of a weak-kneed, timid, jellyfish of a juror who is seeking to avoid the performance of a disagreeable duty, namely, to convict another human being of the commission of a serious crime.” After receiving that memorable instruction, the jury convicted the defendant, a pharmacist, of first-degree murder for poisoning his pregnant wife. When the New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, it singled out for censure the judge’s “jellyfish” instruction, noting, “While no judge is to be confined to the use of any precise verbiage, it is our thought that to define reasonable doubt by use of such characterization was not conducive to a fair and impartial consideration of the evidence.”

The reasonable doubt instruction remains an issue of controversy. Last fall the California Law Review Online published an interesting article, “Instructing Jurors on Reasonable Doubt: It’s All Relative,” by the criminal defense attorney Michael Cicchini. He makes a thoughtful and provocative case that the reasonable doubt standards used in states across the country often reduce the prosecution’s constitutionally-mandated burden of proof and in some cases effectively (and inexcusably) shift the burden of proof to the defendant.

For example, Wisconsin’s criminal jury instruction includes the following guidance: “If you can reconcile the evidence upon any reasonable hypothesis consistent with the defendant’s innocence, you should do so and return a verdict of not guilty.” But as Cicchini notes, when jurors are offered two competing theories of a crime, there is a very real risk that the jurors will end up adopting a preponderance of the evidence standard, thus drastically lowering the prosecution’s burden of proof. Moreover, the alternative hypothesis instruction implicitly puts the burden on the defendant to come up with an alternative story of the crime. As he explains, 

 “Aside from the obvious due process violation, such burden-shifting is also incompatible with the harsh realities of our criminal justice system. In many cases, the government controls and develops the physical evidence and even has exclusive access to key witnesses, all of which makes the development of alternative hypotheses very difficult. Worse yet, generating such a hypothesis is even more problematic for the factually innocent defendant. The reason is that, in many cases, an innocent person simply ‘knows nothing about the crime.’”

In response, Cicchini has proposed his own jury instruction. Here is a portion of it:

“Before you can return a verdict of guilty, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. Some civil cases use the preponderance of evidence standard. In those cases, it is only necessary to prove that something is probably true, or more likely true than not. But this is a criminal case, and the State’s proof must be more powerful than that.

Other civil cases use the clear and convincing evidence standard. In those cases, it is necessary to prove that the truth of something is highly probable. But this is a criminal case, and the State’s proof must also be more powerful than that.

In criminal cases such as this, you can convict the defendant only if the State’s proof satisfies you beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. If it does not, you must find the defendant not guilty even if you think that the charge is probably true, and even if you think it is highly probable that the charge is true.”

I very much like the comparative approach Cicchini proposes. As he notes, the preponderance of the evidence standard used in most civil cases is much easier for juries to understand because they intuitively grasp the idea of “more likely than not.” From there they can then move to the concept of clear and convincing evidence before finally tackling the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. By using the two familiar civil standards as conceptual anchors, judges can help juries get a better understanding of what “reasonable doubt” means. 

As Cicchini points out, however, North Carolina may already have the best and most concise definition of reasonable doubt. Section 101.10 of North Carolina’s pattern jury instructions states:

“A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense, arising out of some or all of the evidence that has been presented, or lack or insufficiency of the evidence, as the case may be. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that fully satisfies or entirely convinces you of the defendant’s guilt.”

In contrast, the judge in the Manafort case reportedly told the jurors today that reasonable doubt means “a doubt based on reason.” It is hard to see how that circular explanation added much to their understanding. But the judge did go on to provide a little more guidance by explaining that “[t]he government is not required to prove guilt beyond all possible doubt.” We will find out in the days ahead whether the Manafort jurors found that definition helpful. 

As for other approaches to the reasonable doubt standard, here is a link to Cicchini’s interesting article. 

Comments

[Enrique Guerra Pujol (priorprobability.com)]

It would be better if we jurors were allowed to emit a “Bayesian verdict”, i.e. allowed to rank or score the strength of the prosecution’s case, as I propose here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2362908

[Anthony Gaughan]

This looks really interesting, Enrique. Thank you for the link to your article.

[Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Environmental Justice]

….you get it for a reasonable fee. Up front.

[Scott Pruitt Edndowed Chair in Environmental Justice]

The perfect, concrete example or Reasonable Doubt is when OJ Simpson put on that glove and he splayed his fingers. "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."