511 U.S. 1 (1994)
On October 14, 1984, petitioner Sandoval shot three men in a gang-related incident in Los Angeles, killing two of them.1
About two weeks later he entered the home of a man who had given information to the police about the murders and shot him dead, then killed the man's wife because she had seen the murder.2
Sandoval was charged with first-degree murder in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, California.3 The jury was instructed that reasonable doubt is that state of the case which, after the entire comparison and consideration of all the evidence, leaves the minds of the jurors in that condition that they cannot say they feel an abiding conviction, to a moral certainty, of the truth of the charge.4 The jury convicted Sandoval on all counts.5 The jury found the special circumstance of multiple murder, and the trial court sentenced him to death for murdering the woman and to life in prison without possibility of parole for the other three murders.6 The California Court of Appeal affirmed the convictions.7
On December 26, 1987, petitioner Victor went to the Omaha home of an 82-year-old woman for whom he occasionally did gardening work, beat her with a pipe, and cut her throat with a knife, killing her.8 Victor was charged with first-degree murder in the District Court for Douglas County, Nebraska.9 The jury was instructed that reasonable doubt is such a doubt as would cause a reasonable and prudent person, in one of the graver and more important transactions of life, to pause and hesitate before taking the represented facts as true and relying and acting thereon.10 The jury was also instructed that a reasonable doubt is an actual and substantial doubt reasonably arising from the evidence as distinguished from a doubt arising from mere possibility, from bare imagination, or from fanciful conjecture.11 The jury found Victor guilty.12 A three-judge panel found two statutory aggravating circumstances and no mitigating circumstances, and sentenced him to death.13 The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence on direct review and rejected Victor's postconviction claim that the instruction violated due process.14
The California Supreme Court likewise rejected Sandoval's claim that his instruction violated due process.15 The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases.16 The cases were argued on January 18, 1994.17 The Nebraska instruction given to Victor's jury was based on a model instruction developed by a committee appointed by the Nebraska Supreme Court.18 A court rule in effect at the time Victor was tried directed that those instructions were to be used where applicable.19 The California instruction given to Sandoval's jury was the statutory definition adopted by the California Legislature in 1927 from Chief Justice Shaw's 1850 charge in Commonwealth v. Webster.20 That definition has been used in California courts for more than a century.21
Whether the reasonable-doubt jury instruction given at petitioner Victor's trial violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?22
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the prosecution prove every element of a charged criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt, as established in In re Winship.23 Jury instructions defining reasonable doubt must be evaluated as a whole.24 The question is whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury understood the instructions to allow conviction based on proof insufficient to meet the Winship standard, as clarified in Estelle v. McGuire and Boyde v. California.25 An instruction violates due process only if it permits a finding of guilt based on a degree of proof below that required by the Constitution.26
No. The instruction given to Victor's jury defined reasonable doubt using language approved in Holland v. United States.27 It was distinguished from the unconstitutional instruction in Cage v. Louisiana by providing context that substantial doubt means not a mere possibility and by including the hesitate to act standard.28 The Nebraska instruction was based on a model instruction with a long history of acceptance.29 When read as a whole it correctly conveyed the concept of reasonable doubt to the jury by informing jurors that they must have an abiding conviction of guilt after full consideration of all the evidence.30
The reference to moral certainty was accompanied by language requiring consideration of the evidence and equating the doubt with one that would cause hesitation to act.31 This prevented any reasonable likelihood of misapplication below the constitutional standard.32
The reasonable-doubt jury instruction given at petitioner Victor's trial did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.33
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Kennedy joined the Court's opinion but wrote separately to explain his understanding of the instructions.34 He stated that the instructions in both cases correctly conveyed the concept of reasonable doubt.35 The hesitate to act language in the Nebraska instruction and the abiding conviction language in the California instruction both adequately informed the jurors of the high level of certainty required for conviction.36
Kennedy also agreed that the moral certainty language in the California instruction, while perhaps not ideal, does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation when viewed in the context of the full instruction.37
Justice Ginsburg joined Justice Kennedy's concurrence and the Court's opinion.38 She stated that the instructions given in these cases, taken as a whole, correctly conveyed the government's burden of proof.39 Jurors would have understood that they could convict only if the evidence left them with an abiding conviction of the defendant's guilt.40
Ginsburg further agreed with the suggestion that the term moral certainty, while not in itself so misleading as to render the instructions unconstitutional, should be avoided as an unhelpful way of explaining what reasonable doubt means.41
Joined by Justice Souter
Justice Blackmun, concurring in part and dissenting in part, argued that there is no meaningful difference between the jury instruction delivered at Victor's trial and the jury instruction issued in Cage v. Louisiana. He noted that both instructions equate substantial doubt with reasonable doubt and refer to moral certainty rather than evidentiary certainty.42 Although Victor's instruction does not contain the phrase grave uncertainty, it contains language that has an equal potential to mislead, including the invitation to the jury to convict based on the strong probabilities of the case and the overt effort to dissuade jurors from acquitting when they are fully aware that possibly they may be mistaken.43
Blackmun concluded that there exists a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed that a lesser burden of proof rested with the prosecution in Victor's case.44
Whether the reasonable-doubt jury instruction given at petitioner Sandoval's trial violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?45
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the prosecution prove every element of a charged criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt, as established in In re Winship. Jury instructions defining reasonable doubt must be evaluated as a whole. The question is whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the jury understood the instructions to allow conviction based on proof insufficient to meet the Winship standard, as clarified in Estelle v. McGuire and Boyde v. California. An instruction violates due process only if it permits a finding of guilt based on a degree of proof below that required by the Constitution.
No. The instruction given to Sandoval's jury defined reasonable doubt using the moral certainty language from the Webster charge that has a long history in California courts.46 It was accompanied by the requirement of an abiding conviction after consideration of all the evidence.47 The California instruction did not contain the additional language from Cage equating reasonable doubt with grave uncertainty or actual substantial doubt.48 When read as a whole, the instruction impressed upon the jury the need to reach a subjective state of near certitude of guilt based on the evidence presented at trial.49
There was no reasonable likelihood that jurors would have understood it to permit conviction on a lesser standard.50
The reasonable-doubt jury instruction given at petitioner Sandoval's trial did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.51
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Kennedy joined the Court's opinion but wrote separately to explain his understanding of the instructions. He stated that the instructions in both cases correctly conveyed the concept of reasonable doubt. The hesitate to act language in the Nebraska instruction and the abiding conviction language in the California instruction both adequately informed the jurors of the high level of certainty required for conviction.
Kennedy also agreed that the moral certainty language in the California instruction, while perhaps not ideal, does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation when viewed in the context of the full instruction.
Justice Ginsburg joined Justice Kennedy's concurrence and the Court's opinion. She stated that the instructions given in these cases, taken as a whole, correctly conveyed the government's burden of proof. Jurors would have understood that they could convict only if the evidence left them with an abiding conviction of the defendant's guilt.
Ginsburg further agreed with the suggestion that the term moral certainty, while not in itself so misleading as to render the instructions unconstitutional, should be avoided as an unhelpful way of explaining what reasonable doubt means.
Justice Blackmun concurred in the Court's opinion in Sandoval v. California.52 He adhered to his view that the death penalty cannot be imposed fairly within the constraints of the Constitution. He would vacate the sentence of death in Sandoval even though he believed the underlying conviction withstood constitutional scrutiny.
Blackmun noted that the instruction in Sandoval's case used the phrases moral certainty and moral evidence. Those phrases were not used in conjunction with language that overstates the degree of doubt required to acquit. This distinguished it from the instruction in Victor's case.