Doubt in Favour of the Defendant, Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt cases, the law does not require proof that overcomes every possible doubt. If based on your consideration of the evidence, you are firmly convinced that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged, you must find him guilty. If on the other hand, you think there is a real possibility that he is not guilty, you must give him the benefit of the doubt and find him not guilty.439 Newman points out that “the misleading phrase about a doubt ‘based on reason’” and the “ambiguous language about ‘hesitating on important matters’” are absent from the Federal Judicial Center Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions.440 Newman also maintains that the appellate standard for assessing the sufficiency of evidence should be redefined as the “reasonable jury” standard, instead of the “any rational trier” standard.441 The US Supreme Court next discussed the jury instructions defining reasonable doubt in Cage v. Louisiana,442 Sullivan v. Louisiana443 and Victor v. Nebraska.444 In Cage, the US Supreme Court invalidated the trial court’s use of the terms “substantial doubt” and “grave uncertainty” in describing reasonable doubt, finding the trial jury instruction unconstitutional.445 Subsequently, in Sullivan the Court addressed the issue of the effects that errors during trial have on an appellate court’s review, holding that a constitutionally deficient reasonable doubt instruction was an error resulting in the automatic reversal on appeal. In Victor, the US Supreme Court discussed the concept of “moral certainty,” concluding that the jury’s understanding of “moral certainty” was unlikely to suggest a lower standard of proof than due process requires.446 Cage v. Louisiana (1990) In Cage, the US Supreme Court delivered a per curiam (unanimous) opinion reversing the judgment of the Supreme Court of Louisiana and holding that the jury instruction given at trial “violated the reasonable doubt requirement protected by the due process clause.”447 The trial judge instructed the jury: [A reasonable doubt] is one that is founded upon a real tangible substantial basis and not upon mere caprice or conjecture. It must be such doubt as would give rise to a grave uncertainty, raised in your mind by reasons of the unsatisfactory character of the evidence or lack thereof. A reasonable doubt is not a mere possible doubt. It is an actual and substantial doubt. It is a doubt that a reasonable Newman, p. 991, citing Federal Judicial Center, Pattern Criminal Jury Instructions 28, instruction 21 (1987). Newman, p. 991. 441 Newman, p. 991. 442 Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39 (1990) (hereinafter, “Cage”). 443 Sullivan v. Louisiana, 113 S. Ct. 2078, 2082 (1993) (hereinafter “Sullivan”). 444 Victor supra n. 401. 445 Cage, at 39. 446 Victor, at 9-17. 447 Cage, at 39. 439 440 102