Garcia

We find ourselves concerned, on this appeal by defendant Inez Garcia from a judgment of conviction of second degree murder, with a variant jury instruction on the concept of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

As is well known, the principles of “presumption of innocence” and “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” applicable to prosecutions for crime, are defined by California’s Penal Code section 1096, in this manner: “A defendant in a criminal action is presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved, and in case of a reasonable doubt whether his guilt is satisfactorily shown, he is entitled to an acquittal, but the effect of this presumption is only to place upon the state the burden of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Reasonable doubt is defined as follows: ‘It is not a mere possible doubt; because everything relating to human affairs, and depending on moral evidence, is open to some possible or imaginary doubt. It is that state of the case, which, after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence, leaves the minds of jurors in that condition that they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, of the truth of the…