All of the calls for a lower standard than "beyond a reasonable doubt"

[onenote]

64. You are misunderstanding how the law works

The defendant who wants to raise self defense and have that defense heard by a jury has an initial "burden of production" (also known as the burden of "going forward&quot . That burden is pretty low, but it still has to be met. It can be met if there is evidence (which could be physical evidence, testimony from a third party or testimony from the defendant, and it can evidence submitted by either the prosecution or the defense) that, when assumed to be true and viewed in the light most favorable to the defendant would, in the court's judgment, allow a jury to find that the defendant had acted with a reasonable fear of imminent death or imminent great bodily harm.

A defendant that simply asks for the jury to be instructed on self defense but that neither puts in any evidence, or can cite to any evidence from which a jury could conclude it was self defense, won't get that instruction. Or if the only evidence that the defendant can cite is manifestly absurd, the judge need not necessarily allow the issue to go to the jury. It is sometimes a close call. For example, if a defendant admits shooting the victim while the victim was in a coma, and there is no other evidence from which a jury could conceivably conclude that a reasonable person would have feared immiment death or bodily harm from a person in a coma, the case won't go to the jury. But if the victim was merely sleeping and the defendant was in his or her own home and the defendant testified that the victim had threatened to kill the defendant before falling asleep and a gun was found in the victim's pocket, a court could and probably would allow the case to go the jury to decide whether, under those circumstances, it believed the defendant's version of events and whether it believed a reasonable person would have feared imminent death or bodily harm from an armed, but sleeping victim.


In my post I suggested that the burden of proof should remain on the state because no one should go to jail if it is equally likely that the evidence supports justification as not. Go back to my sleeping victim case. If the only evidence is that the victim had fallen asleep before threatening the defendant and it turned out the victim had a gun in his/her pocket, and the prosecution admitted those facts, but argued that, beyond any reasonable doubt no reasonable person would fear imminent harm from a sleeping person, the jury could legitimately decide that the prosecution had met its burden of proof and convict. Other facts might sway the jury to reach a different conclusion: if the defendant admitted that they were not aware that the victim had a gun in his/her pocket the outcome might be different than if the defendant argued that he/she knew about the gun and the prosecution could not convince the jury to disbelieve the defendant.

Self defense cases can be hard cases because there always is a subjective element and the evidence often consists of uncorroborated statements or conflicting witness accounts. Once there is evidence in the record that if assumed to be true would allow a fact finder to conclude the defendant acted with legitimate justification, it is not too much to ask that the state convince the jury that its version of what happened and what was reasonable under those circumstances is more plausible than the defendants version.