State v. Allen (68 Ohio St. 516, 1903)

Shauck, J.

The principal portion of the instruction given will be recognized as taken from the charge which in Clark v. State, 12 Ohio, 483, the reporter imputed to Judge Birchard. The portion of that charge which relates to the probative effect of the evidence required to justify a verdict of guilty against one accused of crime has been given in many cases, and we are not advised that it has been the subject of adverse criticism prior to the present case. If the briefs correctly present the opinion of the circuit court it is itself subject to criticism because it does not clearly distinguish between the elements of a crime and the related facts in a chain of inculpating circumstances. The facts necessary to constitute the crime charged in the indictment were stated with clearness and accuracy and in a connection, and with distributive terms, which naturally conveyed to the jurors the understanding that those facts were severally to be established by the required degree of proof, if the charge correctly defined a reasonable doubt. Both the noun and the adjective in the phrase are words in common use, and they are here used with strict regard to their natural and obvious meaning. So naturally and clearly does the phrase itself suggest its true meaning that the numerous definitions found in charges and in reported cases serve to admonish rather than to illuminate. Since the definitions naturally give prominence to the highly significant adjective and thus warn jurors against evasions of duty by affecting doubts which are unreasonable because not resulting from the absence of inculpating or the presence of exculpating evidence, it is due to the accused that the phrase be defined with substantial accuracy, if defined at all. Whether the definition given in the presentíase is subjected to the test of verbal criticism or to that of the decided cases it appears to be substantially correct. Can a reasonable doubt remain “when a full and candid consideration of all the evidence produces a conviction of guilt and satisfies the mind of a reasonable certainty?” Can one entertain a reasonable doubt respecting a fact of Avhose existence he is “fully satisfied?” Would the punishment of crime be practicable if an accused person may require more in this regard than the instruction that strong probabilities of guilt will not justify a conviction? A flexible language affords opportunity for diversity of diction. In the numerous considerations of this subject the phrase reasonable doubt is variously paraphrased and defined. A number of the leading cases upon the subject are critically analyzed in Anderson’s Dictionary of Law. An examination of those cases and others will show that the charge in the present case gave to the phrase a meaning Avhich comports with that which is generally accepted, as it does Avith its natural meaning.

Judgment of the circuit court reversed and that of the common pleas affirmed.

Burket, C. J., Spear, Davis, Price and Crew, JJ., concur.