State v. McMahon

Defendant appeals his conviction of arson, assigning error to the trial court’s failure to define “reasonable doubt” in its instruction to the jury. We hold that such definition is not required and affirm.

At trial, the court used the phrase “reasonable doubt” numerous times in its charge to the jury. The court never, however, defined reasonable doubt and defendant never requested such definition. As no objection was made at trial, we confine our analysis to plain error. We find that the court did not err in declining to define “reasonable doubt.”

Defendant, relying on authority from other…