State v. Holmes

I dissent. As a general rule, trial courts should avoid applying an appellate analysis to a requested instruction on the presumption of innocence. In particular, this trial court’s actions amounted to reversible error.

This case fails to fall neatly within the ambit of Whorton, 441 U.S. 786, 99 S.Ct. 2088, 60 L.Ed.2d 640, because appellant has cast his cause in a statutory mold rather than in a constitutional form as was the focus of Whorton. As the United States Supreme Court has so recently proclaimed: “It is elementary that states are free to provide greater protections in their criminal…