Mayo

The jury in this first degree murder case was instructed the People have the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of murder; defendant Quentin Mayo must be found not guilty of murder in the first degree unless the jury concludes beyond a reasonable doubt the murder was deliberate and premeditated; and resolution of Mayo’s guilt must be based on the evidence presented and not on facts outside the evidence or inferences derived from the fact of Mayo’s arrest or resulting trial. Apparently through an oversight, however, the trial court failed to instruct the jury with CALJIC No. 2.90, 1 defining reasonable doubt as the *539 absence of “an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge” and admonishing the jury defendant is presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. Was that omission federal constitutional error requiring reversal?

The United States Supreme Court has held unequivocally the federal Constitution does not require the trial court to define reasonable doubt or to instruct specifically on the presumption of innocence, provided the jury is adequately informed of the reasonable doubt standard and the corollary due process requirement…

I concur in the judgment but write separately to explain some independent reasons for finding what I regard as extremely serious error to have been harmless in this case and also to emphasize trial courts should not misread this decision as evidencing a lax attitude toward failures to explain reasonable doubt or the presumption of innocence.

In criminal trials, among the most critical and most difficult concepts the trial judge must convey to the jury are, first, the defendant enters the courtroom an innocent person and, second, the defendant can only be convicted if the prosecution produces evidence of guilt so overwhelming it exceeds an extremely high threshold—erasing all reasonable doubt.

These twin concepts are critical because they are the best, indeed often the only, protection against the punishment of innocent people by jurors who otherwise might be tempted to convict those the authorities have charged with crimes merely because they are so charged or on the basis of evidence that only establishes a bare probability of guilt. These concepts are also difficult, because for most jurors they are counter to their ordinary decisionmaking processes. In their daily lives,…

The jury in this first degree murder case was instructed the People have the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt each of the elements of murder; the defendant Quentin Mayo must be found not guilty of murder in the first degree unless the jury concludes beyond a reasonable doubt the murder was deliberate and premeditated; and resolution of Mayo's guilt must be based on the evidence presented and not on facts outside the evidence or inferences derived from the fact of Mayo's arrest or resulting trial. Apparently through an oversight, however, the trial court failed to instruct the jury with CALJIC No. 2.90, [1] defining reasonable doubt as the absence of "an abiding conviction of the truth of the charge" and admonishing the jury the defendant is presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. Was that omission federal constitutional error requiring reversal?

The United States Supreme Court has held unequivocally the federal Constitution does not require the trial court to define reasonable doubt or to instruct specifically on the presumption of innocence, provided the jury is adequately informed of the reasonable doubt standard and the corollary due process…