Amendment 14 — Guilt Beyond A Reasonable Doubt

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Fourteenth Amendment , Section 1:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Absent a guilty plea,[1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn1amd14 " See . ") the Due Process Clause requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt before a person may be convicted of a crime. The reasonable doubt standard is closely related to the rule that a defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.[2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn2amd14 " The presumption of innocence has been central to a number of Supreme Court cases. Under some circumstances, it is a violation of due process and reversible error to fail to instruct the jury that the defendant is entitled to a presumption of innocence, although the defendant bears a heavy burden to show that an erroneous instruction or the failure to give a requested instruction tainted his conviction. Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478 (1978). However, an instruction on the presumption of innocence need not be given in every case. Kentucky v. Whorton, 441 U.S. 786 (1979) (reiterating that courts must look to the totality of the circumstances in order to determine if failure to so instruct denied due process). The circumstances emphasized in Taylor included skeletal instructions on burden of proof combined with the prosecutor’s remarks in his opening and closing statements inviting the jury to consider the defendant’s prior record and his indictment in the present case as indicating guilt. See also Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 (1979) (instructing jury trying person charged with “purposely or knowingly” causing victim’s death that “law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts” denied due process because jury could have treated the presumption as conclusive or as shifting burden of persuasion and in either event state would not have carried its burden of proving guilt). See also Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U.S. 141 (1973); Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 154–55 (1977). For other cases applying Sandstrom, see Francis v. Franklin, 471 U.S. 307 (1985) (contradictory but ambiguous instruction not clearly explaining state’s burden of persuasion on intent does not erase Sandstrom error in earlier part of charge); Rose v. Clark, 478 U.S. 570 (1986) (Sandstrom error can in some circumstances constitute harmless error under principles of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967)); Middleton v. McNeil, 541 U.S. 433 (2004) (state courts could assume that an erroneous jury instruction was not reasonably likely to have misled a jury where other instructions made correct standard clear). Similarly, improper arguments by a prosecutor do not necessarily constitute “plain error,” and a reviewing court may consider in the context of the entire record of the trial the trial court’s failure to redress such error in the absence of contemporaneous objection. United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1 (1985). ") These rules help to ensure a defendant a fair trial[3](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn3amd14 " E.g., Deutch v. United States, 367 U.S. 456, 471 (1961). See also Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39 (1990) (per curiam) (jury instruction that explains “reasonable doubt” as doubt that would give rise to a “grave uncertainty,” as equivalent to a “substantial doubt,” and as requiring a “moral certainty,” suggests a higher degree of certainty than is required for acquittal, and therefore violates the Due Process Clause). But see Victor v. Nebraska, 511 U.S. 1 (1994) (considered as a whole, jury instructions that define “reasonable doubt” as requiring a “moral certainty” or as equivalent to “substantial doubt” did not violate due process because other clarifying language was included.) ") and require that a jury consider a case solely on the evidence.[4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn4amd14 " Holt v. United States, 218 U.S. 245 (1910); Agnew v. United States, 165 U.S. 36 (1897). These cases overturned Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 460 (1895), in which the Court held that the presumption of innocence was evidence from which the jury could find a reasonable doubt. ") The Supreme Court has explained:

The reasonable doubt standard plays a vital role in the American scheme of criminal procedure. It is a prime instrument for reducing the risk of convictions resting on factual error. The standard provides concrete substance for the presumption of innocence—that bedrock “axiomatic and elementary” principle whose “enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.” [5](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn5amd14 " In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 363 (1970) (quoting Coffin, 156 U.S. at 453). Justice John Marshall Harlan’s concurrence in In re Winship proceeded on the basis that, because there is likelihood of error in any system of reconstructing past events, the error of convicting the innocent should be reduced to the greatest extent possible through the use of the reasonable doubt standard. Id. at 368. ")

For many years, the Court presumed that “reasonable doubt” was the proper standard for criminal cases.[6](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn6amd14 " Miles v. United States, 103 U.S. 304, 312 (1881); Davis v. United States, 160 U.S. 469, 488 (1895); Holt, 218 U.S. at 253; Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 525–26 (1958). ") However, because the standard was so widely accepted, it was not until 1970 that the Court expressly held that due process required the standard. That year, the Court held in In re Winship that the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment s protect the accused against conviction “except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” [7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn7amd14 " Winship, 397 U.S. at 364. See Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 503 (1976); Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U.S. 145, 153 (1977); Ulster Cnty. Ct. v. Allen, 442 U.S. 140, 156 (1979); Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510, 520–24 (1979). See also Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275 (1993) ( Sixth Amendment guarantee of trial by jury requires a jury verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt). On the interrelationship of the reasonable doubt burden and defendant’s entitlement to a presumption of innocence, see Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U.S. 478, 483–86 (1978), and Kentucky v. Whorton, 441 U.S. 786 (1979). ")

The Court had long held under the Due Process Clause that it must set aside convictions that are supported by no evidence at all.[8](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn8amd14 " Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U.S. 199 (1960); Garner v. Louisiana, 368 U.S. 157 (1961); Taylor v. Louisiana, 370 U.S. 154 (1962); Barr v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 146 (1964); Johnson v. Florida, 391 U.S. 596 (1968). See also Chessman v. Teets, 354 U.S. 156 (1957). ") However, the holding in Winship left open the question of whether appellate courts reviewing criminal convictions should weigh the sufficiency of trial evidence. In the 1979 case Jackson v. Virginia, the Court held that federal courts, on direct appeal of federal convictions or collateral review of state convictions, must satisfy themselves that the evidence on the record could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.[9](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn9amd14 " 443 U.S. 307 (1979). ") The appropriate inquiry is not whether the reviewing court itself believes the evidence at the trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.[10](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn10amd14 " 443 U.S. at 316, 18–19. See also Musacchio v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 709 (2016) ( “When a jury finds guilt after being instructed on all elements of the charged crime plus one more element, the fact that the government did not introduce evidence of the additional element—which was not required to prove the offense, but was included in the erroneous jury instruction—does not implicate the principles that sufficiency review protects.” ); Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46 (1991) (general guilty verdict on a multiple-object conspiracy need not be set aside if the evidence is inadequate to support conviction as to one of the objects of the conviction, but is adequate to support conviction as to another object). ")

Due process requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged.[11](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn11amd14 " Bunkley v. Florida, 538 U.S. 835 (2003); Fiore v. White, 528 U.S. 23 (1999). These cases both involved defendants convicted under state statutes that were subsequently interpreted in a way that would have precluded their conviction. The Court remanded the cases to determine if the new interpretation was in effect at the time of the previous convictions, in which case the convictions would violate due process. ") Thus, the Court held in Mullaney v. Wilbur that it was unconstitutional to require a defendant charged with murder to prove that he acted “in the heat of passion on sudden provocation” in order to reduce his offense from homicide to manslaughter.[12](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-14/guilt-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt#fn12amd14 " 421 U.S. 684 (1975)