In an extreme and confusing departure from a long line of precedent, the California Supreme Court recently held that a trial court’s failure to give a standard reasonable doubt instruction, in fact, its failure to give any written reasonable doubt instruction at all, was harmless error and did not require reversal of the conviction.
The Court’s opinion involved a man accused of both murder and a gang offense. The trial court, immediately prior to jury deliberation, failed to give the jury the standard reasonable doubt instruction. The trial court did, however, tell they jury they must find the prosecution proved each of the elements of the murder charge beyond a reasonable doubt. No similar instruction was given regarding the gang offense.
The Supreme Court found that the failure to give the standard reasonable doubt instruction related to the murder charge was state law error. The Supreme Court held, however, that since the trial court had mentioned reasonable doubt in relation to each of the elements of the murder charge, the jury understood that it had to apply the concept of reasonable doubt to the murder charge. The Court held the error was harmless and did not require a reversal.
With regard to the gang offense, the Supreme Court found that the jury had heard instructions regarding reasonable doubt during jury selection and related to the murder charge, so the jury must have understood reasonable doubt and understood that it should apply to the gang offense as well. The Supreme Court found that the failure to give any reasonable doubt instruction at all was constitutional and state law error, but it was also harmless error.
Justice Liu wrote a scathing dissent. He commented “There is no reason to think that a question like “was the defendant an active participant in a street gang?” will necessarily cause jurors to ponder (much less correctly answer) the question “under what standard of proof?”” He said that this holding “contravenes precedent, common sense, and [even the Court’s] own opinion.” He questioned how the Court can be certain “beyond a reasonable doubt that the jurors who convicted defendant of the gang offense gave focused attention to the correct standard of proof when they were not even instructed on this standard.” He came to the conclusion that the Court could not, and that the Court mightily strained to come to the conclusion it did.
It remains to be seen whether this case will be appealed to the United States Supreme Court and whether the California Supreme Court majority will stand by this opinion when future appeals come in.
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