State v. Williams, 14463

• Decision Date: 05 November 1979
• Docket Number: No. 14463,14463
• Citation: 184 Mont. 111,601 P.2d 1194
• Parties: The STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joseph Stanley WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.
• Court: Montana Supreme Court

Page 1194

601 P.2d 1194

184 Mont. 111

The STATE of Montana, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Joseph Stanley WILLIAMS, Defendant and Appellant.

No. 14463.

Supreme Court of Montana.

Submitted June 4, 1979.

Decided Nov. 5, 1979.

Daniel V. Donovan, Public Defender, Lawrence A. Anderson, Public Defender (argued), Great Falls, for defendant and appellant.

Mike Greely, Atty. Gen., Helena, J. Fred Bourdeau, County Atty., Carroll Blend, Deputy County Atty. (argued), Great Falls, for plaintiff and respondent.

JAMES B. WHEELIS, District Judge. ^*

Joseph Stanley Williams, the appellant, was charged with felony theft and found guilty of having purposely or knowingly exerted unauthorized control over a pickup belonging to Bison Motors in Great Falls.

Before the taking of evidence at the trial, the defendant requested that the District Court preliminarily instruct the jury with respect to the presumption of innocence. The court refused the request and advised defendant that the instruction would be given in final instructions. At the settlement of final instructions, the defendant renewed his request, but it was denied. The court refused the instruction, which included a statement of the law on both the presumption of innocence and the State's burden of proof ruling that it duplicated another instruction. The instruction proposed by the State and adopted by the trial court instructed the jury that the State must prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It did not instruct them to presume the defendant innocent.

The first issue presented upon appeal is whether the trial court's refusal to give the defendant's requested instruction on the presumption of innocence results in a violation of his right to a fair trial as guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article II, Section 17 of the 1972 Montana Constitution.

On this issue we must reverse. We think even though the jury was properly instructed as to the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, when he so requests, the defendant is still entitled to an instruction as to the presumption of innocence which exists in his favor. As Justice White noted in Coffin v. United States (1895), 156 U.S. 432, 453, 15 S.Ct. 394, 403, 39 L.Ed. 481, 491:

"The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law."

Though the trial court thought it unnecessary to instruct the jury on the presumption of innocence as well as on the State's burden of proof, we think it is a constitutional safeguard to use both.

Appellant relies heavily on Taylor v. Kentucky (1978), 436 U.S. 478, 98 S.Ct. 1930, 56 L.Ed.2d 468, in which the United States Supreme Court reversed a criminal conviction resulting from a trial in which the judge refused to give a requested jury instruction on the presumption of innocence. The State of Kentucky argued that the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt instruction effectively duplicated the presumption of innocence instruction, but the Supreme Court in Taylor said:

"While the legal scholar may understand that the presumption of innocence and the prosecution's burden of proof are logically similar, the ordinary citizen may well draw significant additional guidance from an instruction on the presumption of innocence. Wigmore described this effect as follows:

" '. . . (I)n a criminal case the term (presumption of innocence) does convey a special and perhaps useful hint over and above the other form of the rule about the burden of proof, in that it cautions the jury to put away from their minds all the suspicion that arises from the arrest, the indictment, and the arraignment, and to reach their conclusion solely from the legal evidence adduced.

" 'In other words, the rule about burden of proof requires the prosecution by evidence to convince the jury of the accused's guilt; while the presumption of innocence, too, requires this, but conveys for the jury a special and additional caution (which is perhaps only an implied corollary to the other) to consider, in the material for their belief, Nothing but the evidence, i. e., no surmises based on the present situation of the accused. This caution is indeed particularly needed in criminal cases.' Wigmore 407.

"This court has declared that one accused of a crime is entitled to have guilt or innocence determined solely on the basis of the evidence introduced at trial, and not on grounds of official suspicion, indictment, continued custody, or other circumstances not adduced as proof at trial . . . it long has been recognized that an instruction on the presumption (of innocence) is one way of impressing upon the jury the importance of...