Starr v. State, A91A0994
Decision Date | 03 September 1991 |
Docket Number | No. A91A0994,A91A0994 |
Citation | 201 Ga.App. 73,410 S.E.2d 180 |
Parties | STARR v. The STATE. |
Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Mark V. Cloud, Atlanta, Kenneth D. Kondritzer, Grovetown, for appellant.
Lewis R. Slaton, Dist. Atty., Joseph J. Drolet, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.
Defendant Joe Starr was tried before a jury and convicted of armed robbery and subsequently sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Starr appeals, enumerating two errors. We affirm.
1. Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 111 S.Ct. 328, 329, 112 L.Ed.2d 339, 341 (1990) (per curiam). Defendant contends the trial court's charge on reasonable doubt lessened the burden of proof required under the reasonable doubt standard of Winship and thus violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, defendant contends Cage v. Louisiana, supra, precludes the use of the term "moral certainty" in defining reasonable doubt.
In Cage, the trial court instructed the jury in pertinent part: 498 U.S. at ----, 111 S.Ct. at 329, 112 L.Ed.2d at 341-342.
The United States Supreme Court in its opinion stated: 498 U.S. at ----, 111 S.Ct. at 330, 112 L.Ed.2d at 342.
In the case at bar, the charge by the trial court was substantially different than the charge in Cage. The charge here provided "[n]o person shall be convicted of any crime unless and until each element of the crime is proven beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral and reasonable certainty." The jurors were not told that reasonable doubt must be such doubt as would give rise to "grave uncertainty," nor were they told that reasonable doubt is an "actual substantial doubt." Rather, the charge provided a reasonable doubt ...
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