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Convicting The Innocent Beyond A Reasonable Doubt: Some Lessons About Jury Instructions From The Sheppard Case, Lawrence M. Solan

Cleveland State Law Review

Indeed, it is difficult to prove one's innocence, and the legal system purports not to require defendants in criminal cases to do so. The shift in the burden of proof happened for a number of reasons. In this article, I will discuss another factor that I believe pervades the criminal justice system: jury instructions that shift the burden from the government to the defendant. Part II of this article establishes three criteria for good criminal jury instructions. They are fidelity to the law, comprehensibility, and consistency with the presumption of innocence. It then discusses the presumption of innocence, burden of …