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Name: People v. Stone
Case #: A116034
Court: CA Court of Appeal
District 1 DCA
Division: 3
Opinion Date: 02/21/2008
Summary

CALCRIM nos. 103 and 220 concerning presumption of evidence and the People’s burden of proof are validated by the great weight of legal authority. Appellant argued that the phrase in the instruction directing the jury to impartially compare and consider all the evidence rendered the instruction constitutionally infirm because it connotes a civil, preponderance standard of proof. The court dismissed the claim as an exercise in semantics. Appellant’s second claim that the “abiding conviction” language in the instruction’s definition of proof beyond a reasonable doubt conflates the concepts of duration and weight was dismissed as being contrary to a long line of authority.