C O M P A R AT I V E S T U D Y man can seriously entertain. What is required is not an absolute or mathematical certainty, but a moral certainty.448 The US Supreme Court found that the words “substantial” and “grave” used in the jury instructions at trial suggested a higher degree of doubt required for acquittal than under the reasonable doubt standard. The US Supreme Court reasoned that “[w]hen those statements are then considered with reference to “moral certainty,” rather than evidentiary certainty, it becomes clear that a responsible juror could have interpreted the instruction to allow a finding of guilt based on a degree of proof below that required by the Due Process Clause.”449 Critics note that Cage failed to clarify whether the unconstitutionality of a jury instruction depended on the presence of the critical terms “substantial doubt,” “grave uncertainty,” and “moral certainty.”450 Sullivan v. Louisiana (1993) In Sullivan, the US Supreme Court dealt with the effects that errors during trial have on an appellate court’s review of the case.451 The Court held that a constitutionally deficient reasonable doubt instruction was an error resulting in automatic reversal on appeal.452 In Sullivan, the petitioner was charged and convicted of first-degree murder. At trial, the judge gave a definition of reasonable doubt essentially identical to the one held to be unconstitutional in Cage.453 On appeal, the Supreme Court of Louisiana upheld the conviction, finding that the erroneous instruction was a harmless error.454 The US Supreme Court reversed the Supreme Court of Louisiana’s decision. It reasoned that in deciding whether the error was harmless, the reviewing court must consider what effect the error had upon the guilty verdict in the case at hand.455 The US Supreme Court further elaborated: The inquiry, in other words, is not whether, in a trial that occurred without the error, a guilty verdict would surely have been rendered, but whether the guilty verdict actually rendered in this trial was surely unattributable to the error.456 The US Supreme Court reasoned “to hypothesize a guilty verdict that was never in fact rendered – no matter how inescapable the findings to support that verdict might be – would violate the jury-trial guarantee.”457 Cage, at 40 (italics in original). Cage, at 41. 450 See Matt Nichols, Victor v. Nebraska: The “Reasonable Doubt” Dilemma, 73 N.C. L. Rev. 1709, 1720 (1995) (hereinafter “Nichols”). See also Uviller, p. 35. 451 Sullivan, at 275. 452 Sullivan, at 282. 453 Sullivan, at 277. 454 Sullivan, at 277. 455 Sullivan, at 279, citing Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967). 456 Sullivan, at 279, (italics in original). 457 Sullivan, at 279. 448 449 103