People v. Johnson

The defendant contends that the trial court committed reversible error in omitting the words "moral certainty” from its circumstantial evidence charge to the jury. However, those words are not necessarily required so long as the jury is instructed in substance that it must appear that the inference *627of guilt is the only one that can fairly and reasonably be drawn from the facts, and that the evidence excludes beyond a reasonable doubt every reasonable hypothesis of innocence (see, People v Sanchez, 61 NY2d 1022, 1023). In the case at bar, the court’s charge followed the sample charge contained…