People v. Jones

• Decision Date: 18 November 1970
• Parties: , 265 N.E.2d 446 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Leroy E. JONES, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 617

316 N.Y.S.2d 617

27 N.Y.2d 222, 265 N.E.2d 446

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Leroy E. JONES, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Nov. 18, 1970.

Robert L. Walker and Milton Adler, New York City, for appellant.

Burton B. Roberts, Dist. Atty. (Eliot L. Kaplan, New York City, of counsel), for respondent.

JASEN, Judge.

The primary issues in this case concern alleged errors in the court's instructions to the jury.

The facts are not seriously controverted. Defendant never denied that he stabbed his mother-in-law Anna Arnold, or her friend Elizabeth Steele during a reception in celebration of the marriage of his daughter. Rather, he testified that he had no recollection of stabbing either of these women, and offered evidence of his intoxication at the time of the incident. The principal issue presented at the trial was whether defendant was sufficiently intoxicated so that he lacked the specific intent necessary to convict him of the crimes with which he was charged. (See Penal Law, Consol.Laws, c. 40, § 15.25.)

The first question of law raised by the defendant on this appeal is directed to the court's charge on reasonable doubt. The Trial Judge instructed the jury: 'A reasonable doubt is a doubt which is based upon a reason and which arises out of the evidence or lack of evidence in the case. It is not a doubt based upon the result of sympathy or of whim or of sentimentality or a doubt arising out of the reluctance of a juror to perform a disagreeable duty. It is a doubt for which there is a substantial reason. It is an honest doubt, one that leaves you as the jurors with your minds in a state of suspense so that you cannot say as to the defendant here you are convinced to a moral certainty of the guilt of the defendant.'

At the conclusion of the entire charge, defense counsel, in the presence of the jury, excepted to that portion in which the court stated that a reasonable doubt 'is a doubt for which there is a substantial reason.' He went on to say, 'I believe that is a greater burden than is on the defendant; that (the juror) does not have to show a substantial reason, but a doubt for which (the juror) can give a reason.'

Thus, the criticism is limited to that portion of the definition of reasonable doubt where, by way of paraphrase, the Trial Judge said that a reasonable doubt is a doubt for which there is a 'substantial reason'.

We have never directly passed upon this question. In People v. Herrmann, 9 N.Y.2d 665, 212 N.Y.S.2d 77, 173 N.E.2d 52, we reversed a conviction and ordered a new trial upon the authority or the dissenting memorandum in the Appellate Division, wherein one of the errors mentioned was the definition of reasonable doubt as a doubt for which there is a substantial reason. However, in the Herrmann case, the reversal was mainly predicated upon the allowance of impermissible identification testimony and no consideration was given to the question presented on this appeal.

Reasonable doubt has been defined by our court as '(a) doubt for which some good reason arising from the evidence can be given.' (People v. Guidici, 100 N.Y. 503, 509, 3 N.E. 493, 495.) We had occasion to again define reasonable doubt in People v. Barker, 153 N.Y. 111, 115, 47 N.E. 31, 32, as 'a doubt founded in reason, and coming from reason * * * which survives reason.'

We conclude that the use of the words 'substantial reason', in the context of the instructions delivered by the court, was proper. There seems to be a general agreement among the authorities that a charge which describes a reasonable doubt as an actual and substantial misgiving or doubt of guilt is not erroneous. (United States v. Aiken, 2 Cir., 373 F.2d 294, 299, cert. den. 389 U.S. 833, 88 S.Ct. 32, 19 L.Ed.2d 93; United States v. Heap, 2 Cir., 345 F.2d 170, 171.)

The Illinois Supreme Court, in People v. Ahrling, 279 Ill. 70, 84--85, 116 N.E. 764, 769, approved instructions defining reasonable doubt as 'a serious, substantial and well-founded doubt, and not the mere possibility of doubt.' In Kaufman v. United States, 212 F. 613, the Second Circuit observed that an instruction on reasonable doubt embodying the statement that the doubt is one for which the jury is able to give a sensible reason was sufficiently distinct and proper.

'A reasonable doubt', said the Tennessee Supreme Court in Purkey v. State, 50 Tenn. 26, 28, 'is an honest misgiving as to the guilt of the defendant upon the proof, which the reason entertains and sanctions as a substantial doubt.'

An instruction defining reasonable doubt as a doubt for which there is a substantial reason is not reversible error, when given in connection with other instructions intended to impress upon the jury the distinction between reasonable doubt and a vague or imaginary doubt. Where, as here, the objection is limited to a portion of a definition, it should be read in conjunction with the entire definition of which it forms a part. Taken in such context, it shows that the meaning conveyed is to distinguish that doubt which would avail the defendant, from one which is merely vague and imaginary. Put another way, substantial reason, as used here, merely refers to a sound reason and not one based on guess or surmise. Clearly, in this case, the court's instructions on reasonable doubt, considered as a whole, did not mislead or perplex the jury, but, on the contrary, assisted the jury in understanding the difference between a reasonable doubt and one which is based on a whim, sympathy or some other vague reason.

Defendant also insists that the supplementary instructions given at the request of the jury with reference to 'the difference between first, second and third degree assault', were erroneous in that the instructions were incomplete by the omission of specific intent as an element of the crimes of assault.

The court initially...