20
Opinion of the Court
exceptionable, as it informs the jury only that a reasonable doubt is something more than a speculative one; but the latter could imply a doubt greater than required for acquittal under Winship. Any ambiguity, however, is removed by reading the phrase in the context of the sentence in which it appears: "A reasonable doubt is an actual and substantial doubt . . . as distinguished from a doubt arising from mere possibility, from bare imagination, or from fanciful conjecture." Victor App. 11 (emphasis added).
This explicit distinction between a substantial doubt and a fanciful conjecture was not present in the Cage instruction. We did say in that case that "the words 'substantial' and 'grave,' as they are commonly understood, suggest a higher degree of doubt than is required for acquittal under the reasonable doubt standard." 498 U. S., at 41. But we did not hold that the reference to substantial doubt alone was sufficient to render the instruction unconstitutional. Cf. Taylor v. Kentucky, 436 U. S., at 488 (defining reasonable doubt as a substantial doubt, "though perhaps not in itself reversible error, often has been criticized as confusing") (emphasis added). Rather, we were concerned that the jury would interpret the term "substantial doubt" in parallel with the preceding reference to "grave uncertainty," leading to an overstatement of the doubt necessary to acquit. In the instruction given in Victor's case, the context makes clear that "substantial" is used in the sense of existence rather than magnitude of the doubt, so the same concern is not present.
In any event, the instruction provided an alternative definition of reasonable doubt: a doubt that would cause a reasonable person to hesitate to act. This is a formulation we have repeatedly approved, Holland v. United States, 348 U. S., at 140; cf. Hopt v. Utah, 120 U. S., at 439-441, and to the extent the word "substantial" denotes the quantum of doubt necessary for acquittal, the hesitate to act standard gives a commonsense benchmark for just how substantial
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