The law — whether a crime such as “possession of marijuana,” the burden of proof to be applied by the jury, or the meaning of key legal terms such as “intent” or “possession” or “knowledge” — is defined by jury instructions. For example, despite the label we put on the prosecutor’s burden of proof in a criminal case, the burden is only as formidable as the jury instruction the trial judge reads and submits to the jury. To demonstrate this point, while a North Carolina prosecutor and a Wisconsin prosecutor must, in theory, both prove their cases “beyond a reasonable doubt” to win convictions, consider the dramatic differences between the two states’ jury instructions.
