State v. Harrison

• Decision Date: 26 June 1899
• Citation: 57 P. 647,23 Mont. 79
• Parties: STATE v. HARRISON
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

57 P. 647

23 Mont. 79

STATE v. HARRISON

Supreme Court of Montana

June 26, 1899

Appeal from district court, Silverbow county; William Clancy, Judge.

Martin Harrison was convicted of robbery, and from an order denying a new trial he appeals. Reversed.

M. P Gilchrist, for appellant.

C. B Nolan, Atty. Gen., for the State.

PER CURIAM.

Defendant was convicted of robbery. His appeal is from an order overruling a motion for a new trial.

Objection is made to our consideration of the instructions marked "Refused," but we think the bill of exceptions discloses what instructions were given or refused, and presents for our consideration the action of the court in refusing the following instruction requested by defendant "You are instructed that the law presumes a person innocent until he is proved guilty, and this proof must be of a nature to satisfy your minds beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused. The mere fact that an information has been filed, charging a person with a crime does not in itself raise a presumption of guilt. A reasonable doubt, within the meaning of the law, is not a mere imaginary or possible doubt, but a substantial doubt, based upon reason and common sense, and induced by the facts and circumstances attending the particular case, and growing out of the testimony. It is such a doubt as will leave one's mind after a careful examination of all the evidence, in such a condition that he cannot say that he has an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, of the defendant's guilt as charged. The presumption of innocence has the weight and effect of evidence in the defendant's behalf, and this should continue until it is rebutted by competent evidence which displaces any reasonable doubt you might otherwise have of the defendant's guilt." No instruction of any kind was given telling the jury that defendant was presumed to be innocent until he was proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, although a reasonable doubt was elsewhere defined, as an independent proposition, in the language approved of by this court in Territory v. McAndrews, 3 Mont. 158, and State v. Gibbs, 10 Mont. 213, 25 P. 289. But the mere definition of a reasonable doubt did not supply the lack of the instruction requested, by which a knowledge of the presumption of the defendant's innocence was communicated to the jury by the court. The distinction between the presumption of innocence and a reasonable doubt has been drawn with great ability by Justice White, speaking for the court, in Coffin v. U. S., 156 U.S. 432, 15 S.Ct. 394...