Cite as: 507 U. S. 272 (1993)
Stevens, J., dissenting
instruction explaining the statutory mitigating circumstance at issue in this case.
I
It has been settled for almost a century that the presumption of innocence, when uncontradicted, is an adequate substitute for affirmative evidence. In 1895 the Court held that refusing to give an instruction on the presumption of innocence was reversible error, explaining that "this presumption is an instrument of proof created by the law in favor of one accused, whereby his innocence is established until sufficient evidence is introduced to overcome the proof which the law has created." Coffin v. United States, 156 U. S. 432, 459. A few years later, in his landmark treatise on evidence, Professor Thayer, while noting that a presumption is not itself evidence, concluded:
"What appears to be true may be stated thus:—
"1. A presumption operates to relieve the party in whose favor it works from going forward in argument or evidence.
"2. It serves therefore the purposes of a prima facie case, and in that sense it is, temporarily, the substitute or equivalent for evidence." J. Thayer, A Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law, Appendix B, p. 575 (1898) (hereinafter Thayer).5
The presumption of innocence plays a unique role in criminal proceedings. As Chief Justice Burger explained in his opinion for the Court in Estelle v. Williams, 425 U. S. 501 (1976):
5 "A presumption may be called 'an instrument of proof,' in the sense that it determines from whom evidence shall come, and it may be called something 'in the nature of evidence,' for the same reason; or it may be called a substitute for evidence, and even 'evidence'—in the sense that it counts at the outset, for evidence enough to make a prima facie case." Thayer 576.
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