Cite as: 511 U. S. 1 (1994)
Syllabus
clear by the fact that it also notes that everything "is open to some possible or imaginary doubt." P. 17. (e) The instructions given in Victor's case defined reasonable doubt as, among other things, a doubt that will not permit an abiding conviction, "to a moral certainty," of the accused's guilt, and an "actual and substantial doubt" that is not excluded by the "strong probabilities of the case." Pp. 17-19.
(f) Victor's primary argument—that equating a reasonable doubt with a "substantial doubt" overstated the degree of doubt necessary for acquittal—is rejected. Any ambiguity is removed by reading the phrase in question in context: The Victor charge immediately distinguished an "actual and substantial doubt" from one "arising from mere possibility, from bare imagination, or from fanciful conjecture," and thereby informed the jury that a reasonable doubt is something more than a speculative one, which is an unexceptionable proposition. Cage, supra, at 41, distinguished. Moreover, the instruction defined a reasonable doubt alternatively as a doubt that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate to act, a formulation which this Court has repeatedly approved and which gives a commonsense benchmark for just how substantial a reasonable doubt must be. Pp. 19-21. (g) The inclusion of the "moral certainty" phrase in the Victor charge did not render the instruction unconstitutional. In contrast to the situation in Cage, a sufficient context to lend meaning to the phrase was provided by the rest of the Victor charge, which equated a doubt sufficient to preclude moral certainty with a doubt that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate to act, and told the jurors that they must have an abiding conviction of Victor's guilt, must be convinced of such guilt "after full, fair, and impartial consideration of all the evidence," should be governed solely by that evidence in determining factual issues, and should not indulge in speculation, conjectures, or unsupported inferences. Pp. 21-22. (h) The reference to "strong probabilities" in the Victor charge does not unconstitutionally understate the government's burden, since the charge also informs the jury that the probabilities must be strong enough to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See Dunbar v. United States, 156 U. S. 185, 199. P. 22.
No. 92-8894, 242 Neb. 306, 494 N. W. 2d 565, and No. 92-9049, 4 Cal. 4th
155, 841 P. 2d 862, affirmed.
O'Connor, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court with respect to Part II, and the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, III, and IV, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, and
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